It is rather like we have all dropped off the face of the earth here. Although I am wandering about with my mobile phone strapped to my hip, the signal is sporadic to say the best, I've found some spots next to the roads where you can get a signal, but as soon as you are speaking to someone, a series of juggernauts drive past. Alternatively find a quiet spot, and the signal, always feeble at best, just vanishes.
The local call box, sits there unloved, and unworking.
Accordingly attempting to sort out anything that requires speaking to people that are not face to face, suddenly all becomes very complicated. A rather frustrating morning trying and failing to sort some stuff out, and finding that the local butcher is only open a couple of days at the end of the week. That has pretty much been the pattern for the trip so far, generally arriving anywhere the day it is closed.
I suppose that this is all part of the same package, a quiet tranquil unhurried place, won't run the same way that a busy 24/7 metropolis does. Maybe that is why people down here seem to contentedly look after their gardens and the like, there is probably rather limited scope for doing an awful lot of other things.
Pet peeve out of the way, some other random jottings.
The recent SuperBrands series was very good. Particularly struck by the episode on fashion. It was talking about how fashion seeks to create an image of genuine-ness, for example jeans were authentic workers clothing, so people wear jeans to look like authentic down to earth people. Not only that, people now get pre-worn jeans so that they can look like people who are so authentic that they actually wear through their jeans and wear them out.
I recently got a couple of pairs of Levis at the local discount outlet. All the jeans seemed to be suitably authentic, so if I wanted to look like a lesbian automobile mechanic there was a rich variety of suitable attire. Everything seemed to be pre-worn to some extent, so I ended up with jeans that look like I've owned them for years. I'm really finding it a bit odd having pre-worn jeans. To my way of thinking, this means that extra effort, and no doubt expense, has been expended in rendering my new jeans, half way to being ready to throw out. Jeans do tend to look a bit better a bit worn, so there is a bit of a point to the whole exercise, I don't want to look like Jeremy Clarkson in brand new jeans, but equally I don't want to be paying for something that won't last forever.
Still therefore a bit torn on the whole issue, browsing the Levis website does little to explain exactly what all these different pre-worn options are, similarly a lack of explanations on the internet. I think that there should be some useful guide so that people can understand that
finish A - means that you bum is hanging out, and charity shops would refuse to take it,
finish B - means that your jeans are covered in oil, you oily bum is hanging out, and vagrants would avoid you
finish C - means that formerly perfectly good jeans are now one kick in the pants or a wash away from falling apart,
finish D - means that your jeans are in need of some serious attention from a seamstress, but with a little expense they will probably be fine
finish E - means that your jeans are just a little bit lived in, and only half their useful life has been wasted in getting tumbled around with rocks in an industrial washing machine
finish F - means that your jeans are so factory fresh that no person under forty would actually realise that they are made of denim, they feel like cardboard and generate a crease that could draw blood.
Clearly this sort of clear labelling would avoid unfortunate misunderstandings, no one wants to see people over forty with their bum hanging out of their jeans, nor would factory fresh jeans be a suitable gift for anyone of those gentle teenage years.
Similarly on SuperBrands was the story of SuperDry, every other sweatshirt worn by anyone under thirty now seems to have some variation on the SuperDry logos. They even have shops, I've seen them. Never been in one, but seen them. So you can go in and buy all the sweatshirts you ever wanted with logos that look like something off a 1950's American gasoline pump.
Would any sensible person open such a shop, probably not, but someone is making shed loads of money off it just now.
And from where does SuperDry, of the gasoline pump inspired logo hail, is it Japanese, is it American, no it comes from an industrial estate in Slough or somewhere like that. I am just out of wifi range, while I type this, so I am throwing scholarly accuracy to the wind.
Presumably SuperDry is hooking into the same deep well of desire for authenticity from which the desire for pre-worn jeans sprung. So you too can wear tatty old jeans, and a sweatshirt inspired by a fifties gasoline pump, as you go into your Fine Art lecture in St Andrews University, while your deeply unauthentic parents work as stockbrokers or grief counsellors.
Most of the folk wearing all this stuff would run a mile if someone genuinely authentic were to sit next to them on the bus.
I don't think that there is anything wrong with 'authentic' but it has to be authentic in some way. Looking like an authentic 50's garage hand is hardly authentic when you are walking into your Fine Art lecture, it is just like a child dressing up as a cowboy or a spaceman.
There probably is scope for a new form of authentic. Some way of creating functional clothing that reflects the real world that we live in. To be honest we are not horny handed sons of toil, nor are we climbing up Everest with a slab of Kendall Mint cake stuck in our back pocket. But we do lead busy functional lives, and devising clothing that better reflected this would make a lot of sense.
Functionality is not just a case of sticking extra pockets on, nor of having Goretex fabric wicking the moisture way from your underarm. It should be about clothing that has an appropriate weight and heft, and appropriate life and adaptability. For me, I need clothing that is easy to wear, and maintain. I've already moved to one standard sock, so all my socks automatically match. I need waste no time on matching socks, they are all the same. In a lifetime I will probably have saved half an hour! I am also onto my third pair of identical shoes, reluctantly moving to commando soles as the leather ones just led to neverending maintenance.
I suppose this is a form of functionalism that leads towards uniforms or Mao like standardisation of clothing.
An alternative form of functionalism would be clothing that actually has a functionality beyond the obvious. I'm sure it must be possible to create a combined tie/Swiss Army Penknife, or something similar. Perhaps a tie that folds out to be an emergency blanket for reluctant air travellers, or shirt collars that inflate into makeshift cushions.
There is also the whole world of arduino chips and wearable computing. Rigging up your clothing with capacitative thread. It is quite appealing to imagine clothing rigged with sensors, that broadcast measurements that are recorded by whatever wireless device you happen to be carrying. Already there is the Nike pedometer shoe, what about shirts that warn you about excess sun, or calculate how much fluid you should be taking on.
What about clothing that doubles up as a display device, teeshirts that run a screensaver, or glasses that also incorporate a heads up display of key statistics.
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