Jean Therapy for Cringemuss

With less than a month to go before Crimbletide, I am now no longer allowed to buy myself anything bar essential goods. Luckily, I did a little spending spree before the calendar change, ordering a bunch of CDs from Amazon Japan and stopping by the new big Uni Qlo stores in Oxford Street for a couple of tops and a pair of jeans.

Yes, that's right - this is the first pair of jeans I have ever bought. I gave up on jeans before I started having to buy clothes for myself, and I still don't get the WORLD's obsession with them. Denim is not an especially nice fabric for starters, they get worn out pretty easily and the cut is rarely comfortable. On top of that, EVERYBODY WEARS THEM. Aliens probably think it's some global uniform the UN has decreed all must wear. More people wear jeans out of work than people wear suits to work. Now I've finally gotten myself a pair (mainly because I thought I might as well get some blue trousers in a change to my dark/beige/green selection), I feel even more self-conscious about the fact everyone else is wearing the same than if I'd been wearing something no-one else was wearing. I'm glad I bought them and it's a useful addition to my wardrobe, but come on guys! How about NOT wearing jeans for charity rather than the traditional vice-versa scenario? They're so...boring.

Fashion column over. The Christmas lights have been going up in Turnpike Lane the past week - well, they're non-religious specific, just some twinkly bits on the side of streetlamps. As Bill Bailey referred to in his Tinselworm show I saw on Thursday, they're just there to emphasise the Primary Gifting Period ("BEGIN THE PGP!") that have made advertisements on television more tedious than ever. While we're perhaps more inundated with 'Buy Me' breaks than in Japan, at least it's not as commercially ruthless as it was over there. They were already removing garlands from shop displays at 10pm on Christmas Day. Back closer to home, a banner was being put up over Ducketts Common roughly the same time as the Christmas lights. Would it be a Christmas message? Or a celebratory sign of some sort? Um...no...

STOP DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Zero Tolerance in Haringey

Charming. The banner's already been battered and abused by the wind, causing it to look even more depressing in its now contorted, crumpled state.

Speaking of signs, I've recently been enjoying entertainingly named businesses. I'm pretty certain I would enlist the services of a snappier or sillier named business than a more mundane one, regardless of recommendations or qualifications. There was Swanky! Beauty Salon I saw on the bus today, the Fishcoteque chippie by the BFI Imax (I intend to open a geeky fish and chop called "All Your Plaice Are Belong To Us"), and Jim'll Mix It cement mixer. Whether I needed cement mixed or no, it's worth getting a patio just to tell your mates that Jim mixed it for you.

"Now then, now then, now then, concrete, cement, etc."

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Listening to: Daft Punk - Voyager
via FoxyTunes