The Poles over the
back have got a dog called Tony. To offset this, I’m thinking of re-naming our
cat Zbigniew. The Palmers Green Poles are zealous worshippers of that big
shining thing in the sky. They own a white, £67,000 BMW 6 Series Convertible in
order to catch all the sun’s rays on their drives to the sklep. When the temperature edges over 19 degrees, the Poles’ back
garden becomes a Central European version of the DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh
Prince “Summertime” video. Their conversations are so shrill that I feel like a
superhero with enhanced hearing – only I can’t understand a word other than
“TONY!” Tony, God love him, barks and barks all day. He’s a fighting dog,
fashionably illegal and will happily yap just to pass an hour.
The Pole’s intriguing blend
of Gdansk techno and Wroclaw pop-reggae team up tantalisingly with the stereo of
my English next-door neighbour. In the daytime, he’s as free as a dicky bird. I
think he’s a barman. His musical taste is as wide as Poland’s borders, but all his
tracks have to be played loudly, whether it’s The Kinks, Creedence Clearwater
Revival or Ghostface Killah. An overlooked musical genius in the Jools Holland
mould, he tinkles the ivories every hour, on the hour, replete with full-power vocals,
always with his windows open at their maximum 90-degree gape. Ah, the joys of
summer. I’m working at home today – well, I should be, but I’m writing this.
Twenty-six degrees and the back door is fastened shut. At least the
double-glazing acts as an effective sound muffler. However, it’s not easy to
breathe in here.
I’ve got my shorts on
today. That’s alright cos I’m at home, not the office. You should never wear
shorts to work unless you’re a footballer – I thought you knew this already? –
yet in summer, London’s offices transform into Rio-style poolside parties. Spring’s
first shafts of sunlight release Havaianas flip-flops and skater shorts from hibernation.
In a way, we were lucky this year to have had an extended winter. Those obscene
extremes of cold and shiver-me-timbers Arctic blasts meant offices were free from
hairy legs until 7 May – my wedding day, which was the first warm day of the
year. But Britain’s ongoing Brazilification is back on track now. With the mercury
rising, we’re dancing the samba.
Earlier today, I
passed through London’s Soho and found that 98 per cent of male workers are clad
in shorts. With all that hair, it’s Movember for the legs! Most of Soho’s media
stock look like “Will”, that Mr Puniverse who was Chris Evans’ lackey. These
days, wiry white legs and bulging Neanderthal toes are permanent fixtures in
the office until 30 October. Women, meanwhile, wear bras and pants beneath perfectly
see-through dresses. Most men revert to their Carry On base instincts at such sights, booming, “The girls, Sid,
the girls,” like demented Bernard Bresslaws. Bras are for the bedroom! We’re
walking through an endless lingerie section of Kay’s catalogue! The basic slips
that women wear barely deflect the fierce yellow of the sun. They’re going home
in the evening with sunburn even though they think they’ve been covered up. I
don’t think I saw the clasp of a bra until I was 16… you can see one every 16
yards now.
The thing is with flip-flops
is that they lead to full-on barefootedness in the workplace. What happens is,
myriad sets of sweating monkey feet clasp hold of table legs between big toe
and the next toe along, spreading advanced forms of canker and gym-derived infection.
There comes a time where you have to make a stand against germ warfare. Some of
you already know my drill. We should treat the barefooted in much the same way
that the Royal Navy dealt with the threat of U-boats in the Battle of the
Atlantic. Mine the channels!
I found the most
effective weapon against bare feet to be the drawing pin. Simply sprinkle a
couple by the printer and then drop a pin every few yards. You’ll be amazed at
their effectiveness. Just wait for an explosive scream and then try to maintain
a straight face. Stricken vessels will naturally hop to a seat to inspect the
damage, thinking they’re the most wronged individuals on the planet. They’ll
see that a small hole has appeared in their calloused pads, a circle that
quickly fills with their own homo
neanderthalensis blood. Oh, he’ll shout and swear alright, but the next day
he’ll be wearing heavy jeans and boots. In British offices, you should wear
long trousers with appropriate shoes and socks. Where do you think you are lad, double-games?
Regardless of seasons,
once you reach 40, all the clothes in your wardrobe suddenly feel like they’re
from Mothercare’s toddler range. No matter how many times you flick through
your logo-adorned shirts and polos, they no longer represent who you are or
what you believe in. At first, you think you must be sliding down the same slope
as Reginald Perrin prior to his mental meltdown, because all your clothes look comical
and absurd. It’s like all your outfits have been designed for hanging out at
the youthy.
If you’re from the
North, like what I am, instinct tells you to wear your shirt hanging out, ie:
not tucked in, because that’s how Bernard Sumner of Electronic wore his shirt
on the Philippines-shot “Get The Message” video in May 1990. Clinging doggedly
to the past, and with few sartorial options available, a few days after turning
40, I went into work with a shirt flapping around my backside, convincing
myself that I wore my garment in such a manner purely for socio-cultural
reasons – I was Northern, working class, remained a Factory Records idealist
and I didn’t want to look like a Hooray Henry with my shirt tucked into hipster
jeans. But I felt scruffy, like a bin man, like Eddie Yates.
I’ve met Sumner a couple
of times in the last few years, and I have to say, I’ve never seen him with a
shirt hanging out, not that I’m basing my entire wardrobe around his fashion
teachings or owt. In fact, he seems to wear a lot of Adidas and Superdry, which
is not my thing at all. When I turned 40, I had a ruck with fashion. I stopped
wearing shirts completely because I didn’t know what to do with them. Our
office at work is as hot as Haiti all year round, due to perpetually shivering
women (cold hearts!), so you can’t wear long sleeves anyway – it’s like being locked
in a car in Port-au-Prince with all the windows wound up. And regular polo
shirts, like Lacoste and Fred Perry, seem too casual. My solution was knitted
T-shirts; I was partial to a knitted Gio-Goi T-shirt around 1990-91, so I’m
maintaining a link, of sorts. I get my versions from H&M, Banana Republic
and Zara, all for under £30 a pop.
The days of splashing
out £70 on a Lacoste are in the past. A polo shirt lasts for three months
before it loses its shape, so it makes sense to pay modest prices. Also, when I
turned 40, the thought of wearing a logo suddenly seemed vulgar and uncultured.
And to think, 15 years ago, I’d have been stomping around lower-league football
grounds in Stone Island, which I now consider the most vile fashion statement
in the history of mankind. What a pile of s*** that label is. I once paid £120
for a Stone Island cagoule and it wasn’t even showerproof. It went translucent
in drizzle and even struggled with fog moisture.
One of the major
fashion transformations for a man in his 40s is a new-found love of proper trousers,
the sort your grandad wore all his life. I refuse to pay over £50 for a pair of
jeans as it is. I’ve become reliant on Uniqlo’s range of casual-fit denim. I’ve
also noticed that lots of jeans brands have started scrimping on their arse coverage
due, I assume, to yoot’s predilection for revealing the brand of their
undercrackers. I don’t want to look like a bloody builder or rapper! Trousers
have become the practical option, and the best leg coverings I’ve found in recent
times have been at Banana Republic. Tony Wilson’s favourite label! Soft and
comfortable, I hope mine last forever. The trouble with trousers is that they
have baggier pockets than jeans, and this can lead to disastrous consequences.
Having DJ’ed at a
Central London location the other Friday, I got on a night bus, with my
trousers on, obviously, sat down and settled in for the journey. The ride
seemed to last 40 seconds… I was drunk. I got off and as I put the key in the
front door, I realised that my pocket was empty. My phone was travelling,
without a valid ticket, towards Enfield. My baggy pocket had released its
bounty and my no-nonsense Nokia phone, my constant companion since 2008, that
had sent something in the region of 25,000 texts and never taken a photograph,
because it had no camera, was gone. With a screeching hangover, head ringing
with pain, the following day I had to call Vodafone to explain my loss. It
proved a fortuitous cock-up because I was rewarded with a
free phone and a reduced monthly bill. Even so, proper trousers demand respect.
You need to keep your hands in your pockets more.
I’m often asked if
I’ve ever had any fashion faux-pas in my stylish existence, and apart from the
Stone Island debacle, my only outre purchase was a pair of white jeans in 1995.
They were great, actually. White jeans are a young man’s game, but in ’95 I was
young and single. So I bought the white jeans and wore them on a sweltering
Tuesday, which was also the day that the music and football titles at IPC
Magazines played football at dinnertime. It was 32 degrees, and I had pure
water leaking from my armpits and forehead, such were the conditions. An hour
of full exercise and I was as thirsty as a dog, so I jogged back to my office
and downed a litre of Evian in little over ten seconds, then kept slurping to
rehydrate. With my white jeans atop my sweltering legs, I was asked to run an
errand as my junior position implied. Twenty minutes in, my arse turned into a
crop spray. Without going into too many details, I had to bin my boxer shorts
and remained in an IPC toilet for 30 minutes as my body expelled as much from
my bowels as it could shift. I had plans that night; I soon wouldn’t.
It was a diabolical
afternoon. I had acute diarrhoea and was wearing Daz-white denim. Inevitably,
the strain started to show and a copper line developed around my Winnersh
Triangle. I abandoned the evening’s meet-up and planned my homeward
journey. I knew I was embarking on an embarrassing escapade, where schoolgirls
and attractive women would crease up with laughter as their eyes spied my zebra’s
rear. I sat wherever possible, stood against walls other times, then ran up
Wimbledon hill to get indoors. I washed the jeans twice but the stains remained
stubborn. In fashion, some things are not meant to be. The jeans were quickly
disposed of.
When I was in Banana
Republic the other day, buying some proper trousers, there were a few pairs of
white jeans in the sale section, so I tried some on for old time’s sake. For a
start, the legs were too tight. Anyone who came of age during the Madchester era
can’t bear unyielding material against their skin. I thought I looked terrible in
them – the wife wanted me to buy them. I knew that if I bought white jeans, at
some point I’d be bent double in some godforsaken toilet feeling like I was the
Space Shuttle on take-off. And I’d have left the burn marks! Having just seen a
photograph of an albino zebra, that was the look I was rocking on that fateful Tuesday
in 1995. Right, I’d better get on with some real work. And I need to feed Zbigniew.
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