M&S TIME WARP
I am not a Marks and Spencer kind of person. Never have been. We do go in there occasionally for food. But if I was shopping for clothes it wouldn't be the first place I'd think of. Or the second, third or tenth. I don't pretend to be the snappiest of dressers - but M&S? Please....
Yet the other day I found myself in an M&S Outlet store. Only because Barbara wanted to go in and see what they had on offer, since the prices are a fair bit cheaper than in the normal stores. To pass the time I had a wander around the men's clothing. And, as I'd expected, found little to interest me. I'm only a few months off turning sixty myself, but everything in there looked like it was aimed at old men, much older than me. Or at younger men who are prematurely middle aged (Tories?).
No surprises then. In fashion terms M&S looks locked into a bygone era. But there's another reason, besides appearance, why it felt like going back a few decades.
I'm not especially tall, around six feet two. However I am disproportionately short of torso, long of limb. Gibbon like. Thirty and more years ago getting sleeves that were long enough and, even trickier, jeans and trousers that didn't expose my ankles, wasn't straightforward. I always had to shop around a lot.
As I've aged the problem has reduced greatly and finding the requisite leg length - thirty four inches - is simple enough. Hell, even Primark have that as size 'long'. Evolution has moved on and in today's generation my gangly build is far more commonplace, and the clothing racks reflect that change.
But not in M&S. To this day it seems they still think 'long' equals thirty three inches. Or, as I like to think of it, far too bloody short. Not only they do produce clothing that surely only the terminally conservative would want to wear, but they don't seem to have realised that shapes have changed too. Didn't I hear they were losing business? It's not hard to see why.
Oh, and Barbara, who has past the sixty mark, felt that most of the stuff she looked at was for old ladies who wanted to look like old ladies. I don't think either of us are M&S kind of people....
Tuesday 26 January 2016
Monday 11 January 2016
David Bowie's dead
ON THE BOWIE BANDWAGON
I noticed that David Bowie died today. I couldn't help but notice really, since all the news programmes and all my social media timelines have been about little else. Big event, eh?
Well it seems to be for a lot of people. Cue much wailing and fearfulness and a great gnashing of teeth. Or something like that. His death is a sad event, but all deaths are.
OK, I sort of get it. Most people have songs or albums from their past they associate with particular moments in their life. Sometimes they feel the artist was talking just to them and helped them through some difficult patch, usually in their teenage years. And Bowie did turn out some good songs, and was amazingly long lived as a pop star.
But that, when all is said and done, is all that he was. A pop singer. An influential one perhaps, but he's still just someone you either liked or didn't, or just found to be a background noise to your life. And if it's the former you shouldn't really expect everyone else to feel the same way you do. Yet I suspect many will find my words objectionable. (I saw one tweet that linked to a video of his last gig and said that everyone - yes, everyone - had to watch it. Or maybe I could make my own mind up?)
I looked at one article that claimed to list his seven most important songs. Right enough, I'd heard of six of them, and really liked a couple. The seventh meant nothing to me. It's noticeable that the latest of the six was recorded in 1983, round about the time I realised I no longer felt any need to pretend I was taking an interest in pop music. Much as I think Space Oddity is a great song, some of Bowie's stuff I found a bit annoying. He had, to my ears, that slightly whiny quality you get with some London accents, and that could be off-putting. So I was never going to be a fan, was never tempted to buy his music, even though I was fully aware of who he was. Many people weren't, and what's wrong with that? Yet there are articles out there on the internet wondering how anyone could not have heard of him. It's not that hard to figure out....
A few days ago there was a similar, albeit far lesser, outpouring about the death of another singer called Lemmy. (Sorry if you're a fan of his, but I'd genuinely never heard of him.) If someone dies who was an important part of your formative memories then such events are upsetting. Shortly before that I heard of the death of a singer who was important to me when I was developing my own musical tastes - Andy M Stewart. I'm well aware that hardly anyone who reads this will have a clue who the guy was, but he mattered to me. Bowie didn't.
We're all different, we all have our own tastes, memories and heroes. Let's not expect everyone to share them.
Ironically, from what I do know of Bowie, I think that's a message he'd have approved of.
I noticed that David Bowie died today. I couldn't help but notice really, since all the news programmes and all my social media timelines have been about little else. Big event, eh?
Well it seems to be for a lot of people. Cue much wailing and fearfulness and a great gnashing of teeth. Or something like that. His death is a sad event, but all deaths are.
OK, I sort of get it. Most people have songs or albums from their past they associate with particular moments in their life. Sometimes they feel the artist was talking just to them and helped them through some difficult patch, usually in their teenage years. And Bowie did turn out some good songs, and was amazingly long lived as a pop star.
But that, when all is said and done, is all that he was. A pop singer. An influential one perhaps, but he's still just someone you either liked or didn't, or just found to be a background noise to your life. And if it's the former you shouldn't really expect everyone else to feel the same way you do. Yet I suspect many will find my words objectionable. (I saw one tweet that linked to a video of his last gig and said that everyone - yes, everyone - had to watch it. Or maybe I could make my own mind up?)
I looked at one article that claimed to list his seven most important songs. Right enough, I'd heard of six of them, and really liked a couple. The seventh meant nothing to me. It's noticeable that the latest of the six was recorded in 1983, round about the time I realised I no longer felt any need to pretend I was taking an interest in pop music. Much as I think Space Oddity is a great song, some of Bowie's stuff I found a bit annoying. He had, to my ears, that slightly whiny quality you get with some London accents, and that could be off-putting. So I was never going to be a fan, was never tempted to buy his music, even though I was fully aware of who he was. Many people weren't, and what's wrong with that? Yet there are articles out there on the internet wondering how anyone could not have heard of him. It's not that hard to figure out....
A few days ago there was a similar, albeit far lesser, outpouring about the death of another singer called Lemmy. (Sorry if you're a fan of his, but I'd genuinely never heard of him.) If someone dies who was an important part of your formative memories then such events are upsetting. Shortly before that I heard of the death of a singer who was important to me when I was developing my own musical tastes - Andy M Stewart. I'm well aware that hardly anyone who reads this will have a clue who the guy was, but he mattered to me. Bowie didn't.
We're all different, we all have our own tastes, memories and heroes. Let's not expect everyone to share them.
Ironically, from what I do know of Bowie, I think that's a message he'd have approved of.
Friday 1 January 2016
Looking down on the Graves
LIFE ABOVE DEATH
And that's a year gone by, living above 'our' cemetery. We had all the jokes about it being the dead centre of the city, the neighbours are dead quiet, people are dying to live here etc etc ad nauseam. But the reality is that it's been not just peaceful, but surprisingly interesting as well.
With so many tree varieties out there the view changes greatly across the seasons. There's the odd bit of wildlife as well, with many birds, a few squirrels and the occasional fox. But it's human activities to the forefront. Funerals of course, because it remains an active graveyard, visitors to gravesides and out of general interest (there's a historic memorial on the far wall), plus the people involved in the general upkeep of the place.
This is Rosebank Cemetery, just a mile or so to the north of the city centre, it's over a hundred and sixty years old, and I have to admit to finding it fascinating. To illustrate the changes that tkae place over a twelve month period I'm kicking off a new weekly photo blog. This will contain weekly pictures taken from our fifth floor vantage point - some standard views each week, then anything of additional interest I come across - so I can look back at this time next year and see how the sights from our windows advance across the course of 2016.
The new blog is called A Year in the Life.... of Death and I will be trying to post every Friday (or the nearest day possible if I'm away) throughout the year. Do have a look if you think it might be interesting. Or even if you don't.
And that's a year gone by, living above 'our' cemetery. We had all the jokes about it being the dead centre of the city, the neighbours are dead quiet, people are dying to live here etc etc ad nauseam. But the reality is that it's been not just peaceful, but surprisingly interesting as well.
With so many tree varieties out there the view changes greatly across the seasons. There's the odd bit of wildlife as well, with many birds, a few squirrels and the occasional fox. But it's human activities to the forefront. Funerals of course, because it remains an active graveyard, visitors to gravesides and out of general interest (there's a historic memorial on the far wall), plus the people involved in the general upkeep of the place.
This is Rosebank Cemetery, just a mile or so to the north of the city centre, it's over a hundred and sixty years old, and I have to admit to finding it fascinating. To illustrate the changes that tkae place over a twelve month period I'm kicking off a new weekly photo blog. This will contain weekly pictures taken from our fifth floor vantage point - some standard views each week, then anything of additional interest I come across - so I can look back at this time next year and see how the sights from our windows advance across the course of 2016.
The new blog is called A Year in the Life.... of Death and I will be trying to post every Friday (or the nearest day possible if I'm away) throughout the year. Do have a look if you think it might be interesting. Or even if you don't.
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