Dress Code For Work
In the last decade and a bit I have worked for a grand total of three I.T. companies. It’s because I’m a loyal employee who is happy to work for companies with good people and good working environments and is not interested in career progression or the huge wage increases that can come from jumping from place-to-place every 12 to 18 months. Also: I fear change. In addition to being companies in the Information Technology sector (a fortuitous happenstance given that I’m a software/web developer and there’s little call for that sort of experience in the fishing industry or on box assembly lines) these companies have shared another trait: none of the companies has required that its employees adhere to a dress code while working. In very large companies – the sort with vast, open-plan offices perhaps, or maybe those ones with employee cubicles that pop up in movies of the 1980s with stunning regularity – it’s not uncommon for the male workers to follow a dress code of suit jacket and tie and shirt and smart trousers and shiny shoes and maybe pressed underpants and pleated socks and silk vest and I’ve run out of clothes, but the places in which I’ve been employed have been considerably smaller (fewer than thirty employees, all of them) and there has been a far more relaxed attitude to clothing; you have to wear some but after that it’s up to you, unless there’s a meeting with a client. I like the relaxed attitude to what you can wear at work. It suits me as I have a relaxed body. And mind. I don’t want to have to think about having things ironed or dry-cleaned. I don’t want to choose between the slate grey suit or the charcoal suit or the grey-black suit or the black-grey suit. I don’t want to have to own more than one suit in case there’s a terrifying ketchup disaster one day. Ketchup disasters occur more frequently than you would imagine. I like my trainers, my jeans, my t-shirt, and my hoodie. I can throw them on and just go work. In the company where I currently work there are effectively three groups of developers: one group working for one client, one group (where I fit in) working for a number of clients, and the group of pixel monkeys who draw pretty pictures and colour things in and make things look lovely. In a terrifying move on a par with the Nazi’s annexation of Czechoslovakia in 1938 the first group of developers have recently started wearing smart trousers and shirts. This change of dress code has occurred...
Fashion Faves – Constance Jablonski
From a shoot entitled Double Jeu for Numéro magazine, featuring Constance Jablonski. The work of the photographer Sebastian Kim and the stylist Charles Varenne has produced an absolutely wonderful editorial that immediately bring to mind the visions of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and all the gorgeous styling in that movie. Click the image to view the complete set and drool for...
Uggs Alternatives From Whooga
I was recently contacted by a company called Whooga and asked to promote their boots, alternatives to the Ugg brand, in exchange for some cold, hard cash. I was contacted on account of my apparent status as a "fashion blogger". Now, I like money – especially the cold, hard kind of money – but I don’t like being called a blogger (I prefer the term Words Mystic) and I don’t like being identified as a fashion blogger because, well, I’m not. Now, that’s not to say that I don’t like fashion. I do have a Style section on this site because fashion photography and design is interesting to me. Also: the models are pretty. Often scrawny, but they scrub up well. Anyway, where was I? So, Whooga UK wanted me to promote their boots for money. I ignored it. They then offered more money. I politely declined. They then offered me a pair of boots for free to review. Free boots? Get in the good books with the wife? And get a good excuse to write something long and rambling on the site? I became suddenly interested and this post – nay, first ever boots review! – is the result. Uggs What the hell are Uggs? Well, I think the dictionary defines them as "kinda like wellies, only soft, and with fur inside, and a bit weird-looking, okay, sometimes awful-looking, but you know, women seem to like them". I forget which dictionary that is. I’d never really paid much attention to the boots before and neither had my wife; she likes shoes and boots – she could open a museum in our house with her collection – but Ugg have never been on her hitlist. Getting a pair of Uggs from Whooga would be our first in-depth look at the boots. Whooga Uggs The first surprise upon opening the box from China was just how light the boots were. It turns out that this is standard for Uggs and part of the comfort appeal to women just might be that wearing a pair of Uggs is better than strapping breeze blocks to your feet. Who knows? I certainly don’t. Fathoming the minds of women is a skill beyond me. Light, yes, but from first look the quality seemed very good. Whooga Uggs are made from merino sheepskin which, it turns out, is very fine and very soft. But don’t just take my word for it! – although you should because I have a very trustworthy face – go read up about it on that source of all truths Wikipedia: "Merinos are regarded as having some of the finest and...
Football Terrace Songs
Attend a football match and you’ll hear singing and chanting from all around you. You won’t be joining in because carrying on the chant into a new verse or repetition of the chorus when everyone else instinctively knows to stop – thereby isolating your rather weedy-by-comparison vocal strength, inability to hold a note, and apparent misunderstanding of what exactly those lyrics were anyway, and ensuring a swift turning of heads for rows in either direction followed by mocking laughter – is something you only ever do once; the fear controls your actions thence onwards. Have you ever wondered just why certain teams’ fans seem to like to sing certain songs at football matches? Are you wondering it now that I’ve put the thought into your head? What about now? If the answer is "yes" or "oh, just get on with it" then you’re in luck because you’ve arrived at the right page on the internet. Liverpool – You’ll Never Walk Alone Get yourself along to Liverpool’s Anfield football stadium, or watch Liverpool on the television and you could be forgiven for thinking that Liverpool fans sit politely in silence for entire games. In fact, this is only nearly true. Pay special attention and you will find that if Liverpool are actually winning (it happens sometimes) and the game is within the third minute or more of extra time then a tiny core of Liverpool fans who decided to remain will almost certainly strike up a chorus of this maudlin showtune from the musical Carousel. The adoption of the song by Liverpool F.C.’s fans is purely coincidental. The first purpose-built cinema was not opened in Liverpool until February 1957. Prior to that date a mobile screening of the popular movies of the day took place in a number of venues around the city, including one in the Kop stand of Anfield. The very last movie to be shown in the football stadium was Carousel (although it was scheduled to be The King And I which could have changed footballing history considerably) and in an unusual show of emotion the Liverpudlians who liked both films and football decided to honour the former at so-called spectacles of the latter by performing the entire score during the eighty-five minutes of lull in the game. It was only in the nineteen seventies, with the earlier arrival of entertaining Emlyn "Crazy Horse" Hughes and his hilarious, in-game grass-eating antics that the number of songs was reduced to a more manageable one: the dirge "You’ll Never Walk Alone". Portsmouth – The Pompey Chimes It’s a simple chant – Play Up Pompey, Pompey Play Up – and...
Sex Sirens Of Saturn
Previously… Leopard Ladies Of Mercury Buxom Amazons Of Jupiter "I put it to you Mr Hawkes that this is the gravest danger we have ever faced." I was most adamant on this fact and jabbed my finger in his general direction even as I jutted out my chin to check for stubble growth in the reflection afforded by the rear porthole with its view of the star-filled heavens. Mr Hawkes was his usual voiceless self. I had now spent countless weeks in the admittedly well-furnished space-traversing vessel with just Mr Hawkes for company, and poor company at that. It is no exaggeration to say that my mind had entered a dark place just as my body was hurtling through dark space too. "Damnation man!" I exclaimed loudly, wheeling around. "Won’t you just speak up for once! This solitude and silence are enough to fray the edges of my mind!" Mr Hawkes kept himself just outside the edges of my peripheral vision. It was an extraordinary talent he possessed in this respect but it held scant recompense for his otherwise dreadful companionship. Our games of tag and hide-and-seek had been initially entertaining but ultimately grated on the senses. There was little entertainment in playing with someone as skilled as he was. I prepared a meal for one from the ship’s kitchen. I didn’t like to exclude Mr Hawkes as it gnawed at my sensibilities, yet if the man would not so much as converse then he deserved to suffer. He hadn’t complained thus far and I suspected he was consuming ship supplies slyly while I slept. At the conclusion of the meal – a full Sunday roast for the seventh day running for I had determined there was an excess of potatoes that needed to be consumed before the eyes they had already sprouted started winking – there was a rather loud knock on the outside of the spaceship. "Mr Hawkes! Will you get that?" I asked. He would not, and there was a second knock, followed swiftly by a third. I put down the plate that I had been washing, dried my hands, and made my way to the foremost porthole. I glared at Mr Hawkes as I did so but he leapt away from my gaze preventing me from seeing whether he was in any way sorry for being so utterly unhelpful. At the front of the vessel I expected to see what I always saw: the black beach of outer space sprinkled with star sand. I jumped back in shock. Needless to say but my eyes were greeted by something wholly unexpected. "Carruthers!" I gasped. "It simply...
A Great, Big Cockroach
"I found a great, big cockroach in my house last night." "A great big cockroach?" "No, a great, big cockroach." "I see. Just how big?" "I’d estimate its height as a fraction under two metres. It stood on its back legs in the doorway to the kitchen as I stepped into the hallway." "That is big." "I said as much at the start." "And just how great was it?" "It had washed up, ironed, and had the dinner on." "That is great." "I did tell...
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