Category: Grooming

Every Minute

Fashion

…a fool is born, goes the saying.  And chances are that the first thing said fool will do is slap down $600 for a pair of… flip-flops?

I’m not kidding.

How the humble flip-flop became the shoe of the summer with unbelievable price tags to match

JHC.

I remember the wonderful little speech given by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, in which she schools ingenue Anne Hathaway about the importance of the color “cerise” and how great minds in the fashion industry planned its future appeal, years before it became “fashionable”.  (Don’t bother looking it up;  it’s dark- or cherry pink.)

I thought the speech was a great example of how easily people can be fooled into thinking that something of little value or consequence actually matters.

As an Olde Phartte of many summers, I can recall many stupid fashions — platform shoes, wide psychedelic neckties, wide lapels on suits, etc. etc.

But I never ever dreamed that fucking flip-flops — which should all be burned on a giant bonfire (along with their wearers*) — would become the new overpriced trend.

When I see F1’s Lewis Hamilton wearing a pair of Laboutin flip-flops in the pits, then I’ll know how far we’ve fallen.

Time for gin?  I think so.

*Note:  No snide references to Australians, the worst offenders in this footwear folly.

Not Alone

Clothing, Grooming

Seems as though I’m not the only one out there who is looking askance at the current “dressing down” (or as I refer to it, “prole drift”) of society.  The redoubtable Laura Perrins of TCW* Magazine has an even more jaundiced view than I:

Never trust a politician without a tie

I’d post an excerpt, but her entire article is just too delightful for words, so go there now.

And while she uses Oily Little Shit Tony Blair as her exemplar of the Untrustworthy Politician genre, there are several Over Here, too.  Like this fucking asshole:

Q.E.D.

*stands for The Conservative Woman — and has nothing to do with the Brits’ version of our Stupid Party.

One Out Of Three Ain’t Bad

Grooming

Consider this pic of one couple’s happy day, and spot what causes my nuts to ache:

No, it’s not the bride’s tattoo — I’ve pretty much given up on that irk — and in fact she’s the only pretty thing at this little ceremony.  Nor is it the female minister / ministress, who looks like she was just pulled out of a company meeting, complete with name tag.  (FFS, if we’re going to have female priests, can they at least wear the fucking uniform?)

Anyway, none of those get up my nose as much as the groom’s medieval haircut.

This seems to be all the fashion nowadays, and I think it’s uglier than Hillary Clinton’s fat naked buttocks.

The only consolation I’m going to take out of this is that when his grandchildren look at Pawpaw’s wedding-day pics, they’ll laugh their asses off.

I’m assuming, of course, that he’s capable of actually fathering any children, because that’s not clear (unless the bride is already pregnant hum hum).  Even then, her rather alarming stomach protuberance isn’t evidence of any prowess on his part, because that might be / probably is Homeboy Jamaal’s chocolate babycake cooking in her little oven, and this Ginger Childe Harold is just the substitute father.

And by the way:  brown shoes at a wedding?  Oh well, it least it wasn’t Adidas sneakers or flip-flops…

En Passant

Grooming

In yesterday’s funnies I featured a meme which contained the following pic:

Am I the only guy who hates this “style” with a passion?  It’s a modern one — it certainly doesn’t appear in any art or photographs before the 20th century — and I can only think that whoever first came up with it must have hated women, a lot.

Missing: Self-Respect

Clothing, Grooming, Manners

Dalrymple talks about how everyone’s all concerned about self-esteem, but completely lacking in self-respect.

Not only do people fail to make the most of themselves, they seem determined to make the worst of themselves, as if they were setting a challenge to others not to remark on them or pass a judgment about the way they look.

Actually, it’s worse than that. People are so caught up in their self-esteem that they think it’s more important than self-respect — in other words, that how they feel about themselves is more important than how others feel about them, and missing the point that both are important.

T.D. talks about clothing:

In England, fat young women (of whom there are lamentably many) squeeze themselves into unbecomingly tight costumes, like toothpaste into a tube. It is as if they were intimidating you into not noticing how hideous they look.

Well, yes;  it’s the classic mark of the narcissist.  And that attitude is just as prevalent in these here United States.

Look, I understand all that:  goths, hippies, biker gangs, Mods ‘n Rockers (yeah, I’m dating myself badly here) and all the so-called fashion trends that bedevil every generation.

All of them, however, have one thing in common:  they denote that the wearers are societal misfits.

Since I passed the age of adolescence, where such nonsense was important, I’ve always had one or the other of these self-imposed restraints on myself whenever I leave the house:  would my Mom / wife / grandfather be ashamed to be seen in public with me, dressed as I am? 

If the answer is even marginally “yes”, I change my outfit.

And quite frankly, if there’s anyone who doesn’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks of me, that would be me.  But I care, deeply, about what my close family and -friends think of me, and that reflects itself in many aspects of not only my dress but also in my behavior.

Alone with my male buddies, I’m a total lout.  In polite company, I’m a different person altogether.

It is the habit of a lifetime, drilled into me by parents, boarding school, the army and wives;  and frankly, I’m too old to change my ways now.

In a business setting, for example, I’m always well-dressed (suit, tie, polished shoes and all that) and likewise groomed (neat hair, trimmed beard, clean-shaven and nice-smelling).

So when I go to a company and see a bunch of men with scraggly beards, clothing which looks like they were slept in and with body odor to gag a vulture, I honestly don’t care about their self-esteem;  I just find them repulsive — and no matter what, I can’t take them seriously.

Judgmental?  You bet your fucking life I am.

Table Manners Matter

Manners

Over at the DM, Tom Utley talks about table manners, and the apparent disdain with which the foul Gen Z twerps regard them.

If we’re to believe a poll out this week, however, old-fashioned table manners will soon be consigned to history. A ­survey of 2,000 teenagers and adults found that 60 per cent of those aged 12 to 27 — known as Generation Z — think table manners in general are no longer important.

More than three-quarters of them, finds Censuswide, say they don’t care about elbows on the table, while more than half think it doesn’t matter which way round a knife and fork are held.

I have a rather jaundiced view of the whole thing, because I’ve found that all manners — never mind just  those at the table — seem to have taken flight and disappeared from modern life.  And while the article is Brit-specific, it’s certainly true in the U.S. as well, and both New Wife and I continue to throw up our hands in horror when we encounter such societal contretemps.

But as for table manners:  our kids (her two and my three) have all been indoctrinated in the matter, and I’m pleased to note that they’ve passed on that training to their other halves and kids.

I remember well the first time I noticed how well-mannered my kids were, several years ago.  The occasion was afternoon tea in the St. James Room at Fortnum & Mason, where impeccably-dressed waiters and waitresses brought us plate upon plate of foods (sandwiches, and then scones with jams and clotted cream) and of course, pots and pots of F&M’s delicious Royal Blend tea.  (It’s still the Son&Heir’s favorite, and it’s a staple birthday present choice.)  Anyway, the kids showed impeccable table manners, and of course we the parents were hugely gratified that all our efforts had not been in vain, and that we were not embarrassed by any loutish and gross behavior.  (The same was evident when New Wife and I were treated to afternoon tea at the Ritz by her two sons, a few years back:  exquisite table manners all round.)

I have a visceral reaction to someone with terrible table manners:  I finish the meal as quickly as possible, and make a point of never eating with that person ever again.  When someone gobbles down their food like a baboon, and speaks with a mouth full of food, I actually feel nauseated and try not to look at them at all.

I’m somewhat indifferent to the American style of eating, whereby one cuts the food into small pieces and then transfers the fork to the right hand to spear it.  (It’s the way children eat their food, back where I come from, but it’s a method that is firmly discouraged once they reach the age of seven or eight and have developed the dexterity to eat properly, i.e. with the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right.)

Living here in Murka, I’ve always been keenly aware that I’m the “guest”, so to speak, and that if that’s the cultural norm, then manners preclude me trying to change it in others.  That doesn’t mean that I’ve changed my eating style, of course, and when American table companions point out my “British” style of knife-and-fork usage, I just shrug and say, “South Africa was still a British colony when I was born, and that’s one of the little legacies thereof.”  To change the way I eat is unthinkable.

The whole point of good table manners is respect for the feelings of others — hell, that’s the point of good manners in toto, and not just at the table;  and I find it amusing that in these times, when everyone has to tiptoe around the feelings of others so circumspectly, that the most important of these is no longer de rigueur.

Anyway, I’m just glad that I’m unlikely to be exposed to the boorish table manners of the child-like Gen Z people, because to be honest, I have no interest in any kind of intercourse with them at all, let alone at the table.  And if exposed to them in public (e.g. in a restaurant), I’ll just put on metaphorical blinkers and try to ignore them — unless it all gets too much, and I’ll flay them with scorn and contempt, loudly if in the mood.

As Gen Z seems to be, as a whole, a bunch of tender snowflakes, I don’t think I’ll be in any danger.