After a lengthy absence

Well, my election special received so much aplomb that I've had to take a short sabbatical to let my ego-swelling down. My fingers are now deflated enough to once again operate a keyboard, and I feel the best use of my newly recovered tactile ability is to raise issue with something which annoys me, and I'm sure a lot of other (more) level-headed people. Strangely it doesn't even pertain to the teaching I've once again taken on, although that is certainly a near-endless source of brat-related antagonism.

Once upon a time, I triumphantly left my dress shoes at home, and required something respectable for my feet which would compliment my incredibly sharp looking dinner jacket.

Sharper than this. AND my head isn't made of wood. 

A jaunty car journey later, I had arrived at the cavernous citadel of retail that is West Quay- a shopping centre designed by people who think that people need commodities in the following ratios:

Relative use to a human being

Now shoes are pretty high up on this list (which could be titled "The Anorexic Female's Guide To Shopping") so one might expect that it'd be relatively easy to find some which met my (as usual, totally unrealistic) list of criteria:

1. Not too expensive. I consider 'expensive' to be anything where I could buy a decent mobile phone for the same price, basically. Actually I consider 'expensive' to be anything more costly than breakfast.
2. Black
3. Loafers of a decent shape. Sort of....

Not to be confused with the more delicious but less wearable 'Loaf'

I went through five pretentious, loud, stuck up, overpriced shitshacks before finally finding a perfectly decent pair for a modest £35 at M&S. Apparently I've stumbled upon a pantheon of high street clothing (and indeed shoe) shops who pride themselves on employing tubby GCSE-failures as staff which they then soak in tar and roll in their stock room until they're suitably adorned in a visual sick-bag of clothing and scarves.

If you're not yet salivating at the stylistic possibilities these prime specimens are offering, consider next the artificial environment created to tantalise your senses and get your wallet fingers twitching: namely one where gaudy fake gold trim, retro wood and rope fittings, loud thumpy 'music' and glitzy plastic signs and pictures take precedent over, say, actual clothes. Or price tags. This is sort of what I imagine Hell would be like if the interior design was handled by Gok poofing Wan. Very few places outside theme parks feel so fake. The tans of the patrons don't help.

By the time I was contemplating suicide, I had been in a number of these cesspools masquerading as retail outlets, and found a grand total of ONE shoe which matched criteria 2 and 3 in paragraph 5 (subsection 1) above. It cost £100. I do wonder if they've ever sold any. If so, there's clearly a target audience out there with the shared brain capacity of a fungus who are willing to throw money away in exchange for a sensorial assault and prolonged exposure to fat retards. I may have mentioned this previously (see 50% of all the blags I've ever blagged).

Compared to this M&S not only felt sane, reasonable, clearly labelled, unpretentious, well staffed, well stocked, and altogether reassuring: it felt like heaven. I don't really have much brand loyalty so don't consider this an advert. It's just that apparently a run-of-the-mill clothes store that does good sandwiches meets my approval more than any overdecorated fashion chain.

This is what I got when I Googled "M&S heaven"

Consider this a challenge, then. If you honestly believe I would miss out by spending the rest of my shopping days in Bhs, M&S, and other budget-y, down to earth stores then I would like some proof. Find me a clothing item so overwhelmingly awesome that it's worth the audio-visual rape and testicle-shrivellingly expensive price tag and I shall buy you a Coke.

In the meantime Abercrombie and Fitch, Jack Wills, Jones The Bootmaker, Republic, and all their chic little friends can take their stock and ram it firmly up their noses.

-Neop.

A Russian Perspective

I've been trying to think of suitably insightful things to smother lovingly on my little blog, when today after browsing the Russian news site Pravda, I came across something I feel is so fantastically written it deserves to be reproduced in full. It sort of, matches the 'style' of this blag. Anyway, Mr Timothy Bancroft-Hinchley (who sounds very much like a man from Surrey) writes for the Russian publication, and has produced this literary masterpiece. I hope none of you are Tea Party members:

Spankin' Sarah Palin: A clown short of a circus

I have already called Sarah Palin a pith-headed bimbo from the back of beyond, in this column. I shall now go one step further. By attacking the democratically elected President of the United States of America at a sensitive time in her country's history, she shows the tact of a boorish drunkard bawling obscenities at a funeral.

If Sarah Palin is not some kind of a massive political joke in the USA, wheeled out to liven up the political scene from time to time with nonsensical and pastiche (one hopes) displays of sheer and utter ignorance, then it is worrying. It is even more so if anyone other than a manic depressive suffering from a chronic lack of lithium takes this...female...seriously.

Hockey Mum Sarah ex-Governess of Alaska is famous for her shrill shrieking style, displaying a pitifully shallow persona which one hopes is stage-managed to give the rest of the world a good chuckle at the Americans' ability and unique quality to make fun of themselves, a real-life female version of Homer Simpson-cum-Belching Barney at Mo's, giving us ever-more hilarious soundbites as she sets herself up as the dumbest woman on Earth.

Just occasionally, one encounters a bar-room idiot whose party piece is belching loudly before falling backwards off his stool, bouncing off the floor on his backside with a background provided by guffaws of laughter, yet who winks knowingly as he is carried out with his feet scraping along the ground and says "Don't worry son, most of it is an act".

The act. It reminds one of Marilyn Monroe putting on the act of the dumb blonde. But an act it was, a character projected by a shrewd, intelligent and charismatic woman with the ability to invent a persona. Sarah Palin, however, is the real-life thing. And it is becoming patently obvious that it isn't an act.

Sarah Palin, the one famous for ludicrous statements such as "I want to help clean up the state that is so sorry today of journalism. And I have a communications degree"; she is after all someone who "must have lived such a doggoned sheltered life", Sarah "We're all Arizonans now" Palin, cracking down on immigrants when the US of A is after all a country formed by...whom?

And now she turns not only against the fibre and backbone of her country, but against its democratically-elected President, accusing him of being incompetent for not stopping Wikileaks. Where was she and where was her GOP before and during the 9/11 attacks? She accuses President Obama of not taking "steps" to assure the leaks were not published. What "steps"?

Sinister Sarah Palin then goes on to insinuate that she is an advocate of cyber terrorism, questioning "Did we use all the cyber tools at our disposal to dismantle WikiLeaks?" Surely a more sensible question would have been why the material for the leaks was provided in the first place...and this has nothing to do with President Obama, but indeed speaks volumes about the State apparatus itself which goes beyond party politics. Her question also speaks volumes about her own inability to perform logical and strategic thinking.

President Obama after all knows the difference between North and South Korea, he knows that Hawaii is the largest US island and not Kodiak and he does not use the expression "refudiate".

If anything is a threat to the national security of the United States of America, it is this screaming, unrefined oaf with as much class as a searing release of flatulence followed by hysterical giggling at a state banquet. Is this what the people of the USA deserve?

To attack the President of the country at a time when the USA needs to close ranks and stand together to consolidate the enormous strides his intelligent and respectful approach has achieved in building bridges, when her party's period in government bombed them, Spankin' Sarah Palin comes across as a pitifully inadequate anachronism from the times of the Far West.

The United States of America has evolved. She has not.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey