Busytown: Oh, Gee
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Anyone wearing those tight baggy jeans should be subjected to youthenasia!!
And as for your older lad wearing a bombers jacket, but failing to do the honourable deed to Ron Mark's office..... shaaaaaaaame lady!!
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Ron Marks Action Watersports - (sounds more like Dover Samuels) has their own line of - you guessed it hoodys.
http://www.ronmarks.com/Trendy%20Threads/Trendy%20Threads%20for%20Land%20Go%27ers.html
As a List member does Ron Marks have an electorate in order to have an electoral office.
Love the dementors comparison
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I think you were at UC about the same time I was (vague memories of seeing your name on University Challenge team?)
Steinlager sweatshirts with BLUE or GREEN on them were all the rage. And yes, they came with Hoods.
And Fairydown parkas, the pull over kind a big front pocket and a hood. I saw someone in a mauve one yesterday - took me back. I coveted those parkas, but didn't feel up to the $100 plus price tag.
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As a one-time teenage girl, I still burn with the passionate conviction that clothes maketh the grown-ups flip out, and that that is entirely as it should be.
OK, so don't judge younglings by their dress unless they're trying to freak the squares, in which case... Oh fuck it, just pull up your damn pants and retire that Porn Star t-shirt to the fashion hall of shame. If not on grounds of good taste and self-respect, how about truth in advertising?
Bovver boots, I guess. Good old cherry red or shiny black Doc Martens, imported at enormous expense from the UK. [...] Yes, I concede there was a minority ('orrible, and gormless) who used their boots for evil, but for the rest of us, it was a fashion choice.
And isn't that what makes the sociology and semiotics of fashion so damn interesting? I must be getting old, because I remember when authentic DM's were pretty hard to find, very expensive and beyond cool. Why, because they were fashionable among trad skinheads whose sense of style was as codified and complex as that of any Regency dandy -- Doc Martens were popular with labourers and factory workers (tick the working class consciousness box) and made in England (like Ben Sherman, Fred Perry, Baracuta). Funny how, for the original skinheads, their embrace of black music and culture was, in many ways, more provocative than a pair of work boots and a Ben Sherman shirt.
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so while jelly-tips may not be available - but when the time comes to provide kiwi food to the kids school's international/diversity/whatever day you know what you have to do right? ........
yup - hokey pokey - bring a camp stove make it right there in front of them ..... great chemistry experiment too .... the first year we brought it to our kids school no one would touch the beige sludge - the next year we actually had a Kiwi teacher, once he'd given his public OK we couldn't make enough
we made it at Burning Man one year too - the Aussies we were camping with were having a 'typical Aussie BBQ' (which meant burgers with beetroot) and we felt we had to add something of our own
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WH,
Despite what I said on the other thread, I enjoyed your post (and its positivity) and hope the day is a big success.
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Those bizarre pants - really, aren't they jodhpurs?
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conveniently just about cold enough for my nice new hoodie to actually come in useful.
Yeah, had my comfort hoodie up this clear cold morning, waiting for the bus, looking an Island Bay swathed in rare fog.
I admit I was worried that someone might mistake me for one of those trendy PA OGs trying to be cool and down with the kids, but I think I got away with it.
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Haha Don! I'm hoping I'll get away with it too.
Those bizarre pants - really, aren't they jodhpurs?
Ugh, yes, and with their very own reins... I can't figure out if it's more the-knights-that-say-nee! or "Will you be wanting the bridal suite?" "No, I'll just hang onto his ears till I get the hang of it, love."
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I think you were at UC about the same time I was (vague memories of seeing your name on University Challenge team?)
Ah yes. That was me looking vaguely normal in a UC sweatshirt (no hood) alongside the sensible mathematician guy with the itchy buzzer finger, the Gothy philosopher lad wearing several shades of black and a fringe long enough for all of us to hide behind, and the lugubrious retired Russian lecturer who tended to take questions about WW2 Europe personally, as if he had been there at the time, which in fact he had. Quite the raggle taggle team next to the other perky foursomes in matching sweatshirts, but in a moment of pure Scumbag College brilliance, we actually won!
(Despite the abundance of lissome, beardless youths on the Otago team, our worthy opponents in the final).
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perhaps my general bustiness
This is key to why hoodies are so uncomfortable for me. There's some kind of equation (tilt of bust + weight of hood?) which causes them to tip backwards and throttle me around the throat. Plus you end up with a weirdly inconsistent hemline, short at the front and long at the back, as though you have a little mini-train around your bum. It's bad news, in general.
But I support you all! In my Old Lady way. (In my teens, I had terrifyingly teased hair and Actual Steel-Capped Boots for Working on Roads, in tiny girl-size sevens, inherited from an older female cousin who, as I recall, was working for the Southland council... I don't think I scared anyone, as I was - and still am - a Huge Dork, but my mum was a bit nonplussed.)
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Nonplussed, that's what I aim for (rather than outraged). Which I think answer's Craig's objection to the apparent inconsistency in my stance. In fact I'm sure adults wear things that outrage or nonplus the kids as well... walk shorts or Mom jeans, anyone? We probably feel like dementors to them, with or without hoodies on.
And yes, brilliant analysis of the failure of the hoodie. Maybe some princess seams on the front and a more cowl-like hood would fix it; I bet Karen Walker's working on it in her top secret lab.
And now that the PAS Women's XV has turned up, can I ask some advice - turns out my jeans are hanging off my bum (result of some assiduous calorie counting) (heh heh, I said assiduous) and I desperately need some new ones. Where do y'all shop for non-Mom jeans??
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There's some kind of equation (tilt of bust + weight of hood?) which causes them to tip backwards and throttle me around the throat.
Uh-huh. Spoils the whole 'pretending to be a monk' game.
And now that the PAS Women's XV has turned up, can I ask some advice - turns out my jeans are hanging off my bum (result of some assiduous calorie counting) (heh heh, I said assiduous) and I desperately need some new ones. Where do y'all shop for non-Mom jeans??
Scuse me while I weep silent tears for a moment. Texas jeans from Shanton were so great they came in half sizes - 11, 13, 15, I've been them all - but alas, they are no more.
Now women's jeans appear to be made for men. They don't go out at the hips, and they don't go in at the waist. In order to get something that fits me through the seat I'd need to go back to that 'braces AND a belt' arrangement from the eighties.
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Jojo, if I've told you once, I've lent them to you a thousand times! Max is best for cheap, best, hot-looking jeans (117 cashel st)... but if you want to go all fair trade on me, Untouched World has organic cotton jeans (cnr Montreal & Worcestor, although the one in Russley has an organic cafe)...
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Oh wise little sister (and by the way, people keep complimenting me on that coat; I just smile I say I got it at a little place called Gemma's Wardrobe)... I tried Max first but they were all out of my size. Untouched World sounds just the ticket - I'll do it over while the boys demolish the discovery room at the Museum.
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Off to row up the Avon at the behest of the good Drs Haywood... I trust you lot to work the government stroke and keep the discussion alive while we re-enact Swallows and Amazons.
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Quite the raggle taggle team next to the other perky foursomes in matching sweatshirts, but in a moment of pure Scumbag College brilliance, we actually won!
A few years ago an Otago President (who I would have thought was too young to remember University Challenge) tried to get it restarted again. Maybe she'd been told about it.
She got a very negative reaction from whatever TV type people she talked to sadly.
After all, Lockwood Smith is going to need a job after he leaves parliament, and he's got great experience as a quiz show host.
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I can't hear "It's what's under the hood that counts" without thinking "clitoral".
I need to get out more.
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Kyle, quiz shows are out with TVNZ. Dumbing down is the flavour of the decade. My husband is a quizzy who has appeared quite a lot here and by invitation in Australia, and we followed the scene.
The heyday of Mastermind and shows where content and intellect counted was over 20 years ago. Of their nature, they did not attract mass participation. Although they rated well with viewers, they put too many older faces on telly for the advertisers' liking.
So to bring in a younger demographic, the show makers started changing their definition of general knowledge, slanting the questions towards current movies, pop music, and sport.
Even this didn't go far enough for their ends, so they took it a step further and quiz shows became game shows and turned into games of dumb luck. Democracy in action, of course.
Not the case in the UK, where our friend Daphne Fowler (you can see her on Eggheads on UKTV) has over the years won cars, trips to the Olympics, staggering amounts of cash and jewellery, paid off her house etc from her extraordinarily wide general knowledge (of the old school variety). General knowledge is still sought after and well rewarded in that country, with many new quiz shows and intellectual contests continuing to appear on their TV and to rate highly.
In this country, by contrast, we have quiz contestants of international standard with no programmes to compete on. Too bad, I hear you cry, and on a personal level our household has done well enough out of Australian telly-money to be grateful for what we have, but that's scarcely the point.
But then we have become used to New Zealand TV increasingly being aimed at an incredibly low lowest common denominator. The audience has been the frog in the pot of warming water where that is concerned. I'll echo Jolisa's cries of Shaaaaaaame.
(As a footnote, we were with Daphne in a pub in Weston-Super-Mare one day when she and Mr Daleaway decided to try out the quiz machine together. Even with those two superquizzies collaborating on the answers and working the buttons together, they could not win a quid out of it. Those machines are rigged!)
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Off to row up the Avon at the behest of the good Drs Haywood... I trust you lot to work the government stroke and keep the discussion alive while we re-enact Swallows and Amazons.
Rowing? Or paddling from the Antigua boatsheds? Many a happy hour spent, etc ...
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Russell Brown wrote:
Rowing? Or paddling from the Antigua boatsheds? Many a happy hour spent, etc ...
You can actually hire antique rowing boats from the Antigua boatsheds these days (along with canoes and paddle-boats). I see Jolisa as a traditional rowing-boat type of person -- hope she doesn't catch a crab.
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Rowing? Or paddling from the Antigua boatsheds? Many a happy hour spent, etc ...
A happy half hour, anyway. We rowed, in the shallowest, tippiest boat it has ever been my nervous pleasure to crew with an enthusiastic six year old and a squirmy two year old. But we stayed dry. The ship's baby got a bit too wriggly after 20 mins upstream, so we returned to harbour and traded in the remaining time for a paddle boat.
Gorgeous day for it, though.
As for Nat:
I can't hear "It's what's under the hood that counts" without thinking "clitoral".
Now I regret chopping out the paragraph where I mused on the link between the psychic appeal of hoodies and the phenomenon of (male) circumcision. (I don't think it works in NZ, anyway?)
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By the way, Paul, great suggestion about the hokey pokey. My cheese and pineapple hedgehogs have always sat there forlornly. Mind you, not sure if they'll be letting us bring sweets to school for much longer.
Also, international week happens to take place while we're away, thus branding "New Zealand" as "the home of those lazy buggers who brazenly take their holidays while school is in session." Oops!
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And as for Ron Mark; funnily enough I hadn't even heard of him until Russell's post. It took me a while to put two and two together when I saw the name on the office next to the loo upstairs from the bookshop, until I realised he was the hoodie hater! Except for his own fine products, of course. Nice catch, that.
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While I'm at it - Rachel's, Craig's and Danielle's posts had me wondering what, if anything, the deregulation of clothing imports has done to street fashion. Genuine DMs were indeed incredibly rare and to be lusted over. I still remember getting my first pair of hand-me-down real ones, all wrinkled and broken in by the previous lady owner.
And yes to the dandy-skinhead comment. If anything, the South Auckland mods were even more codified and erudite in their sartorial practices and musical preferences. Beau Brummels, every last one.
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