Category: Beauty

Vanishing Scenes

Beauty

On a long-ago vacation in the Algarve, my two early-teen sons, who had left the hotel pool to go and swim in the sea, came rushing back towards me in a state of high panic.  “Dad! Dad!  Ugh!  There are these old women lying on the beach without bikini tops!  Ewwww!”

In the interests of parental concern, of course, I had to see for myself what was causing such panic, so I wandered over to the clifftop and peered down.  Yup, the boys were correct:  there was a crowd of elderly French women, sagging, pendulous breasts burned almost chocolate brown, sprawled on towels all over the white beach sands.

That may be a thing of the past, according to some study or other, because it appears that French women are no longer interested in topless sunbathing.

Once widespread in France, topless sunbathing is going out of fashion, a survey has shown, with fears about harassment, body image and health seen as prompting a trend to cover up more at the beach.
Fewer than one in five Frenchwomen under 50 said they sported a ‘monokini’, compared to 28 percent a decade ago and 43 percent in 1984, according to the survey by French pollster Ifop published Tuesday.
Young women aged 18 to 25 said harassment, criticism of their bodies and being ogled by men were their biggest barriers to going topless.

Note the highlighted “under 50” qualification above, because it probably means that the sights which so frightened my sons back in the early 2000s are not going to disappear soon.

So as a public service to my Loyal Readers, here are a few examples of what’s going to be vanishing in France:

 

No need to thank me;  it’s all part of the service.

Old-Fashioned? Me?

Beauty, Modernism

I am often accused of being an old-fashioned man.  This, despite the fact that I’m using a keyboard to enter my thoughts into a digital medium via a thing called the Internet.  And hey, I prefer brass cartridges over muzzle-loading, so I’m not that  old-fashioned (unlike some of my Readers, who believe that this brass thing is just a passing fad).

If you want to know what gets me going, however, consider the following pics, and guess why I tend to prefer tradition over modernity.  We’ll open with the modern ones:

Interior design:

Cars:

Handguns:

Women:

Men’s appearance:

Foods:

And you all know about my preferences in architecture:

So yeah, I guess I am old-fashioned.  Feel free to envy me.

Not The Best Of Times

Beauty, Drive Time

Foul Reader Paul G. sent me these links to the Concours d’Elegance Suisse (here for the pre-WWII models and here for post-war) which show some magnificent cars — and a couple of howlers.  Take this 1981 Daimler V12 Double Six “shooting brake” (a.k.a. station wagon  to us Murkins):

Ooooooglay.

On a tangential thought:  I seem to be one of the few people of my vintage who actually enjoyed the 1980s.  I liked the music, I liked the clothing, and I sure as hell enjoyed the lifestyle.  (Remember, for me the 1980s straddled two continents:  South Africa pre-1986, and the U.S. from 1987 onwards.)

The cars were… well, patchy.  On the one hand, you had the pretty ones:

Mercedes 380SL

Ferrari 288 GTO

Porsche 959

And then we had the wonderful Toyota MR2 (“Mister 2”)

…which unfortunately led other Japanese car makers to go all wedgey, e.g.:

Subaru XT

Acura Integra

Come to think of it, even the 288 was a wedge, but an Italian  wedge (which makes all the difference).

Of course, there were also the 80’s cars which were horrible and disgusting:

Plymouth Reliant

Ford Thunderbird

…and we won’t even talk about the Cadillac Cimarron

Let’s go back to the goodies.  First, the boxy-boxy look:

Audi Quattro

BMW E30 M3

Lancia Delta Integrale

Maserati Biturbo — the very definition of

Saab 900 Turbo

Volvo 740/760 Turbo (& wagon  — you can’t use the term “shooting brake” for a Swedish  car, it’s illegal))

Golf GTI

Note that many of the above were quite decent performers — the BMW E30 is one of the greatest racing cars ever made, the Audi Quattro dominated rallying for years, and even the Volvo 760 Turbo had quite a bit of poke — but they’re all still pig-ugly as far as I’m concerned.   Speaking of “ugly performance cars”, though, there were the Murkins:

Ford Mustang GT 5.0

Buick Grand National GNX

Both the above were quite hideous to look at, but at least they were fast.  As were a couple of European entrants:

Merkur XR4i (a.k.a. Ford Sierra GT)

Ford RS200

…which was underpowered — for rallying — but which still managed a 0-60mph time of 3.8 seconds, which compares well to the supercars of today.

Speaking of supercars, the 1980s did produce a couple of sublime models like the Ferrari F40

and the Lamborghini Countach

There were others (the above is by no means a comprehensive list);  but these were the ones that caught my eye at the time.  To my mind, though, no car captures the spirit of the 1980s quite like Toyota’s MR 2.

Go ahead and talk about your  favorites, in Comments.

Out Of Touch

Beauty

That’s me, because I didn’t know about this phenomenon either:

So like anyone who is intellectually curious, I did a little research:

Now you can all be as educated as I am on the topic… no need for thanks, it’s all part of the service.

Oh, and the best thing about the bikini bridge?  That fatass Kim Kardashian is never gonna have one.

Yet Another Difficult Choice

Beauty, Drive Time

One of my favorite games is one I’ve played before on this blog:  someone offers you a choice between three cars (in mint-original, fully-restored and/or modernized condition, whichever you prefer), which one would you pick?  The rules are:  you can’t ever sell it, so the car’s current market value is irrelevant; and it’s a driver.

For today’s fun, we’re going to feature three ragtop beauties from the mid-1960s (and I’ve tried to match the color so that it doesn’t affect your decision):

1967 Ferrari 275 GT Spider (3.3-liter V-12, 300 hp)

1965 Jaguar E-type Roadster (4.2-liter straight 6*, 265 hp)

1967 Maserati Ghibli Spider (4.7-liter V8, 306 hp)

Go ahead, make your pick in Comments — but show your work.

*Duly corrected, sorry.

/1984