Fashion, dress sense & my cool new navy-blue blazer

Here's a subject I very rarely write about: shopping. Or, to be more precise (and more high-brow), clothes and fashion! I've always kept this blog within a limited range of subject matters: science, philosophy, movies, books, photography, poetry etc. I've now decided that I'm going to increase the oeuvre - enhance the repertoire - of this blog. Don't get me wrong. This is not something I am doing because I want this blog to be more interesting. It already is interesting! - Oh no, fashion and clothes are subjects I have strong opinions about. It's a subject close to my heart. Yes, my heart is rather shallow so sue me! I consciously think about what I wear and what others are wearing all the time. I do enjoy wearing clothes. But I've just never written about it. Clothes make the man, and every contemporary 21st century gentlemen should know how to dress well. All too often I see men just not cutting it in the sartorial department! The truth is that times have changed. Not a long time ago men always looked dapper - they went out wearing suits and hats - in fact, if you didn't wear a suit and hat you were deemed not respectable. Nowadays jeans and t-shirt are pretty much de-rigueur. A pity really. Look - I'm no fashion snob - and yes there is more to life then what you wear - but I think clothes and the way people wear them is an interesting topic ripe for discussion. It's interesting for several reasons. Clothes tell people who you are. What you believe in. How educated you are - your social status. Clothes can give an indicator of the kind of lover you might be in bed: a roaring lion or a squeaky mouse.

I think about what I wear. What matters to me are things like colour combinations, the fitting, the style, layering. Of the four - the fitting is the most important. Clothes should fit as if they were made especially for you. As if (and this metaphor is stretching it a little), as if - you crawled out of your mothers womb wearing the clothes on your back...

Anyway, today I popped into Topman in London's (crazily madly and tortuously busy) Oxford Street - with the intention of doing a bit of lazy browsing (a vicarious pleasure of mine) and (as is often the case) I ended up buying something. A navy blue blazer. £100. I tried it out on the shop floor - on top of my dark jeans, polo top with upturned collars, and black trainers - and instantly fell in love with it. It felt as if it was made just for me! The navy blue colour and the fitting was what did it. The blazer was very snug under the arms and projected a slim silhouette. It had smallish lapels and tapered at the waist. I figured it would go well with a crisp white shirt or even a pink one. I'd be able to yank it up a few notches in the style stakes by donning a t-shirt underneath - for that little bit of trampishness!

Alright - I tell you what - I'll take a picture of myself wearing it - and post it on the blog. What do you say? Would you like to see me wearing it? I bet you would.

The arms need to be shortened a little though. When holding your arms out straight the blazers sleeves should be short enough to allow some of the shirt cuff to peep through. It's not bespoke; well no suit off the rack will fit perfectly unless you're Mr Average. I usually shop at All Saints - more expensive and mainly subdued colours (blues, blacks and greys). I wouldn't wear a Topman suit at a job interview though. The quality isn't as great as say TM Lewin, Reiss, Charles Thwytt etc. And also, with Topman suits being a more 'young' and 'stylish' - you might not be taken seriously by interviewers! Image is important you know - and people who tend to focus too much on fashion and not work-dashion (is that even a word!) are not very good (except me - I'm that rare exception - the smart dandy!). The interesting thing about Topman is that their main market is YOUNG PEOPLE. Let me explain. If a young person were to go and buy a smart office shirt from say TM Lewin - they'd find that its not really designed for them. The shirt has too much excess cloth hanging from the arms and the belly region. It's not 'fitted'. On a young person they'd be too much excess cloth. The reason being that TM Lewin shirts are really designed for middle aged men who have 'bulk' around their shoulders and tummies! A fatty bulk that accumulates with age. I have no bulk whatsoever about me (and nor do I intend to have any in the future), and so I struggle to find a TM Lewin shirt that fits properly. Their new John Francomb 'fully fitted' range is actually not bad - but for perfectly fitting (but not necessarily the best quality) Topman is Topdog!

See I told you I had a lot to say about clothes...

I could literally go on like this you know. I could talk about shoes and how I love brogues till my tongue wilted. I could talk about jeans and who I think makes the best one's till your ears popped. What are the quintessentials of good dress sense? I could talk about the philosophy and biology of clothing till your legs fell off. Why do women always look at men's shoes? Why are shoes important to women when it comes to selecting a mate? Why do politicians wear what they do? What's the secret of dressing so you look skinnier? Answer: dark colours that are of similar hue and vertical lines.  Is dress sense an innate quality that you either have or have not? How much of good dress sense can be learnt? Are Italians really the sharpest dressers and if so why? Are Indians really the worst? Answer: yes! And so forth ad infinitum...

Maybe it's time for me to shut up now.

Yes, it is time for me to shut up. Besides, its almost six o'clock and I need to pop into the Turkish tailor on Stoke Newington High Street and pick up my navy blue blazer - the sleeve needed shortening remember! - £12 quid he's charging me for sleeve shortening. Bloody rip off!

the joy of looking out of windows

I've always enjoyed looking out of windows. There are cafe windows where one can peer onto the pavement (pond) life outside: a veritable river of people flowing with eddies and whirlpools. I also enjoy looking out of train windows onto the backyards of domesticity - the washing on the line, the garden hose, the vegetable garden, the endless rows of neatly trimmed hedgerows: domestic bliss or middle class staidness and banality? There is a 'Wagamama' restaurant where I often go on weekends for a spot of lunch. It has a special long table that faces the long outside window - its great for people who are eating on their own. It's just you, your plate of food, and a window through which you can view the people walking pass. I can look out onto the shoppers and they in return can watch me slurp my soup! I've noticed there are 3 basic types of people that walk pass: 1) the one's that don't look at you at all as you are eating - in fact they look completely the other way (probably because they're too embarrassed) - 2) the one's that will stare at your soup through the window and even stick there nose right up to it to get a better look! (no embarrassment at all for these!) and 3) the sort that will look at you from the corner of their eye, but as soon as you look at them, they'll avert their gaze and look away (sneaky fellows these with an ounce of dignity!).

There! I've taxonomically grouped the human race into 3 distinct types. Look Aways, Look Closelies and Look when not looking! I also enjoy looking out of car windows onto the concrete monotony of the motorway. Aeroplanes windows can be great fun too - the scarred landscape that man has wrought - his presence written on the ordered geometry of fields. Train windows can be the most relaxing. Why? Well, unlike an aeroplane you're not 36,000 feet up in the air and therefore not in imminent danger of sudden death. 36,000 feet is an unnatural position for a human being to find himself in - hence the reason why you can't really relax on an aeroplane - whereas on ground level  you're pretty much on home turf. And with trains you have the added advantage of the landscapes and peoples faces changing like a kaleidoscope - especially on very long journeys that last days.

What a wonderful thing this thin sheet of window glass is! A thin sheet of clearness - that separates you - from the outside - what a miracle of human ingenuity it is. It is strong enough to keep you warm and dry and safe and full of oxygen. Whereas the world on the outside might be cold, wet, windy and dangerous. What would the ancients have made of transparent glass? Oh, how they would marvel at the view from a car or train window! I think at first, they'd probably not even see the glass at all. They might even attempt to pass through it - only to be met with a wall that refused to budge. A magic wall - and then; as their eyes adjusted, they would see it for what it is. A miracle!

When I'm on the train and if I have a window seat I play a little mind game. I close my eyes for 5 minutes and then when I open them, I pretend I'm opening them for the first time. It's a muse that allows me to view the world as if fresh and brand new. Suddenly I find myself just born and in this weird place called a train carriage, with lights, and a view that whooshes past, and it's warm inside - and it stops at places called 'stations' where people get off and new people get on...it's cold and wet and windy outside - I can see the trees and branches dancing and swaying. But inside it's nice! It's a less concentrated version of the feeling you get when you're in some poor hot country (like India for example) and sitting comfortably inside an air conditioned train carriage sipping ice-cold lemon tea - whereas outside, it's a baking oven with countless skinny brown faces - struggling away. It's good to be on the right side of the window. Always has been - and a large chunk of travelling pleasure is gained from this very feeling. It's an unfortunate truth, but a large portion of the pleasure of travel (not all of it) is based on the reality that the world has two types of people in it: the have's and the have not's. Tourism is, in a way, a form of colonialism - but at a safe distance. When we travel abroad; especially to poorer nations - we are like the colonials of old. How the locals dither and dance to our every whim! How obsequious they become when they hear the chink of ready money.

The photographer too views the world through glass. Albeit a glass lens that can distort distorts the view - making it wider or nearer, or (as with a fish-eye lens) totally alien! Looking through a camera is like looking through a cafe window at the pavement life. It's just more concentrated with a camera - and the camera records moments in time, not motion pictures. And the photographer has the artistic license to put his own stamp on the image. To say something. To say: This is I, and this what I have seen, and what I have felt.

Valentine's day treat number 3 : The Lie that is Love

I don’t do love very well. I’ve never really gotten a grip of them; the words that is. They always come out mangled as if someone’s been at them with a chainsaw. Soar? No, they don’t soar. The words don’t even get off the ground! What are words but squiggles on a screen - musical notes – the slant of copperplate – the inflections of desire. What is the most hackneyed combination of words in the whole world? ‘I - love – you’ – overused and over abused. I - Love - You, how pathetic! What does that stupid phrase mean anyway? ‘I – love - you’. Who invented it? It sounds like something someone who doesn’t have anything to say, would say. Perhaps that is its appeal? If you don't know what to say, then say: I love you...

‘Love is being in love with the idea of somebody being in love with you’

Think about it. Love is selfish. Love is narcissism.

I know this is going to sound a little crude so I hope you’ll forgive me. It's something I was thinking about the other day. A sort of little test: if you want to know whether you ‘really’ love someone. And I mean really love them for who they are and not as a device for sex - than ask yourself how you feel about them after you’ve had a wank (i.e. after you've masturbated!). If your desire for them takes a nose-dive than that means you only want them for sex! Good huh? Sick huh? Brilliant huh?!

Here’s another question: What is the purpose of love? Why do we ache and suffer for this crazy little thing called love? – What is its (as the French so nicely put it) 'Raison d’être?' (Reason for being). Everything has a utility function. The utility function of feelings of romantic love is quite simply procreation. i.e. babies. Let me rephrase it:

I am in madly in love with you because my brain releases certain chemical compounds when I see and think about you. These chemicals released by my brain strengthen certain neural ‘connections’ – thus leading to feelings of being helplessly, hopelessly, head over heels, madly in love with you. My brain releases these chemicals because it has been programmed to do so. I have inherited this programmed ability from the genes of my ancestors. My ancestors passed on this ability to their descendants when they had children. The ancestors that had children, and thus who passed on those genes for feeling romantic love, were those who ‘fell in love’ themselves.

In short: thank god my ancestors fell in love…and had children. Love is good because humans who fall in love have children. All my ancestors going back millions of years fell in love and had children. Not a single one of them said: ‘Nah, I don’t think I’ll bother’. Some people might flinch at my scientific determinism; the reducing of love down to its basic principles – thus taking away from its emotional beauty. Don’t get me wrong. Love is beautiful and wonderful – probably the seminal experience of the human condition and I am not trying to degrade it here. All I’m saying is that looking at love from a different angle helps one to see it differently.


Also, I may ‘know’ that the raison d’être for love is to ‘encourage’ humans to have children but that doesn’t mean that I am not affected by it. Though I can see through the screen of its trickery, though I can say ‘Oh love! I know what you're up to. You don't fool me!’, ultimately my brain is human and love effects me in exactly the same way as it affects you or anybody else.

There was something else I was thinking about the other day. It’s an interesting thought and I’d like to share it with you. The world is populated with approx 8 billion people. 4 billion of these are male or female. Excluding those who are too young or too old, that means that there is a vast reservoir of people with whom you could ‘potentially’ fall in love with. Yet, when you fall in love you fall in love with one person and you believe that this ‘one’ person is the only person for you. You start believing that you somehow managed to chance upon this one person and are amazingly lucky to have them! What I am getting at is the 'exclusivity' of love. The fact that we humans don’t fall in love with two or three people at the same time – it’s usually just one - one out of billions. What is the probability that you would meet and fall in love with the ‘one’ out of a pool of billions?


The reason we fall in love with the ‘one’ is not because they are the ‘one’ but because they live near us, work with us, are a friend of a friend or family, that we accidentally bumped into them in the supermarket. The reason for our infatuation with the 'one' is more prosaic than we'd like to admit. Obviously there are compatibility criteria, but even within those compatibility criteria, there are still a hell of a lot of potential people you could fall in love with but this is limited by the number of people you meet.

And yet when you fall in love you think that this is the only person for you and you’ll never find anybody else! When your partner leaves you, your whole world falls apart, and you contemplate suicide and think life is not worth it! This always fills me with wonder - this irrational coup de foudre. Another way to put it is to say that within the limits of compatibility, who you fall in love with is more or less out of your control! Yet, if you ask any couple, they'll say that they were ‘destined to be’, that it was ‘written in the stars’ or that it 'couldn't have been any other way'. Bollocks! The laws of probability say otherwise. The human brain is just not very good at seeing the inter-connectivity of the world and how these invisible forces of probability and proximity conspire in our lives.

In my daily life there are a whole bunch of people I could potentially fall in love with. People who are rushing by me all the time; on London’s bustling trains, on the buses, on the streets, in the supermarket, serving me in the shop, in the bookshop. In a parallel universe I might fall in love with one of them. In another parallel universe I might fall in love with another, and in yet another universe I might get knocked over by a bus…well who knows!


The thing is we are slaves to forces beyond our comprehension and control. Like pawns in a celestial chess game we scuttle along the three dimensions of a multi-dimensional universe. Cause and affect. Love and love-lost. Paradise and paradise lost – if we really understood these things perhaps we’d be masters of the universe?

I know what you're thinking. Am I master of the universe?

(wink)...Of course I am.

Valentine's day treat number 2 : 'I Hate Valentines Day'

I hate valentines’ day
Cos it really really sucks
All these people with cards
Never seen so many mugs

Dairy and Milk chocolates
For their ‘other’ halves
Hope they get fat
and grow a hairy mustache

Am I jealous?
No, why would I be?
Hey, my life is cool man
I have Nintendo Wii!

Though I'll still wander
Like a crafty little fox
A peak tomorrow morning
Into my letter box

You never know I might
Have admirers of sorts
In Cuba, Guatemala or Burma
Gotta be in somebodies thoughts

Though I doubt very much
Doubt very much I do
The only card I’m getting
Is from Timbuktu

Oh, what’s this I found?
Some chocolates on my bed!
Wow! Let’s take a closer look...
Ugh! Its rat droppings instead!

That’s just my luck you see
Please don’t feel sorry - for me
Valentine day’s not for everybody
Especially not for me

Maybe god will feel sorry
And bless my little heart
Send an angel down from heaven
With a cheap valentines card

Though it’s not how cheap
Nor how expensive
What really counts is;
That there is atleast something!

That somebody has thought of you
And you amongst billions
Are you really that special?
A grain of sand in a trillion!

Wow! What a feeling that is
that someone thinks you’re special
And doesn’t think you belong
In a mental hospital

If I had you for a day
on Valentines Day I would;
Not buy you a present
Like everybody says I should:

But instead:

I'd cuddle you for two minutes
Instead of the one
And listen to you non-stop
Even if you drove me nuts

Offer you two slices of pizza
Instead of the one
And let you watch TV
Yeah, watch whatever you want!

I’d cuddle you with arms
And cuddle you with my legs
And just when you're thinking 'Thank God it's over'
I’d cuddle you in bed

Can you do that?
I wonder if you can
Cuddle someone forever
I don’t know; maybe I’m mad

I wonder how many cuddles
I have in me to give
Millions and millions I bet
You watch this Valentines;
I’ll be cuddling myself to bed.

Valentine's day treat number 1 : 'Mr Nobody and Miss Sunshine' (a modern fairytale)

It was valentines evening in LondonTown. The night was young with that lovely blue sky that remains after the sun has set. The pigeons in Trafalgar Square were coo-cooing. Everywhere you looked love was in the air. Lovers embraced on park benches and kissed openly on the Underground. They hugged on buses and ordered pizza and romance DVD's for a night-in. Some looked into each other’s eyes across restaurant tables and some had big arguments and promised never to see each other again!

Mr Nobody and Miss Sunshine also sat across a restaurant table. Their table had a large red rose, two flickering candles and dinner plates decorated with twin hearts entwined. Miss Sunshine was wearing a black sequin dress with a low-neck line. Her sequins were sparkling in the candle-light. She looked positively radiant and she had a smile to die for. How many men would die for that smile? Millions! She was the most beautiful creature in the restaurant.

All the other men (who were also with their girlfriends) were secretly looking at her from the corner of their eyes and wondering who was that lucky guy with her? Bastard! What did he have they didn’t? Well the one thing this lucky man did not have was a sense of style – that’s for sure!

The lucky man was of course Mr Nobody. He was wearing a pink shirt, tie and shiny suit and he looked like he was at a job interview! He had spent 20 minutes in front of the bathroom mirror polishing his teeth – and when he opened his mouth his teeth sparkled almost as much as Miss Sunshine’s necklace!

Mr Nobody was also a little nervous – he was sweating very badly – the sweat was pouring down his face and into his soup making ‘plop! plop!’ sounds as it did so. With every spoon of soup he ate, more sweat would go into the soup. In the end he was left with a bowl of sweat and not much soup. Miss Sunshine found this very funny and couldn't stop laughing. The thing is Mr Nobody had not been on a date with a girl since a long time ago. In fact the last time he took a girl out was when he was in seventh grade of school when he took his classmate Alice to the sweetshop for some cola bottles and strawberry bonbons...

Mr Nobody had read somewhere (book title: Romance For Dummies) that the first thing a man should do on a date is to tell the women how beautiful she looks. So that's exactly what Mr Nobody did.

This is how the conversation went in the restaurant:


[Mr Nobody]
‘Oh lady lady burning bright
On this valentines night
What talented artist of taste
Drew your beautiful face?’

[Miss Sunshine]
‘Mm! What are those strange words you speak? You weird Mr Freaky!’

[Mr Nobody]
‘I have travelled among unknown men
in lands beyond the sea
No heaven did I know till when
My eyes first cast upon thee’

[Miss Sunshine]
‘I must admit you are rather odd!’

[Mr Nobody]
‘The odder I am the more you see
See my tearful eyes, swimming in infinity?’

[Miss Sunshine]
Miss Sunshine stared into Mr Nobody’s eyes. They were as deep as the ocean and as lonely as the depths - for a moment she thought she might drown in them. She quickly swam back to the surface:

‘Woh! Your eyes do speak – but your tongue speaks in poetry! Please stop speaking like that Sir Poet. It is so annoying!’

[Mr Nobody]
‘Forgive me for I never caused to annoy
hear my heart it cries, for a scrap of joy!'

[Miss Sunshine]
‘You are crazy. Do you know that!?’

[Mr Nobody]
‘The stars and heavens are in a twist
my lonely heart wrapped in a kiss
beyond the shores of pirate lands
I stole your kiss with sleight of hand
where did it go? Where lay hidden that kiss?
Why not on my cheeks, little Miss?’

[Miss Sunshine]
Miss Sunshine found the poetry provocative. She didn’t understand all of it – but it was having a profound effect on her…it was making her skin all tingly! She found herself being drawn to Mr Nobody. There was something about him. Maybe he was from a different planet?! Maybe he would take her to his world - wherever his world was! He wasn't bad looking either. OK, OK he had a terrible dress sense and he wore too much perfume and he never smiled and he sweated a lot but he was funny - he made her laugh.

And then Miss Sunshine had an urge, a desire. She leaned forward as if to kiss Mr Nobody but he moved back and retreated into his chair. She was surprised by this. He had asked for a kiss and when she offered it, he refused! What a strange man!

[Mr Nobody]
‘A mortal kiss from lip to lip
I fear my love will chain me to this’

[Miss Sunshine]
‘What do you mean ‘chain you'? Is my kiss nothing but a prison chain?’

[Mr Nobody]
‘Yes, the bird that soars mighty and free
high and brilliant that is me
above the clouds and beyond the oceans
there I rest free of love, and such silly notions’

[Miss Sunshine]
‘You want to be free of love? You selfish monster! You think love is a prison? I offer you a kiss and you throw it back in my face like a dirty dishcloth!’

[Mr Nobody]
‘It is not your love that I fear
but the metal chains do you hear?
They come in the night to drag me away
strong I must be and in love’s nest – not stay’

[Miss Sunshine]
In anger she threw her drink in Mr Nobody’s face. She then got up and stormed off to the ladies bathroom to calm down. On the way she huffed and puffed: ‘Who does he think he is! I offer him a kiss and he say’s no! And why can’t he speak like normal people? And that pink shirt! And that bloody tie! Idiot! Ugh!’

[Mr Nobody]
(While she is was in the ladies Mr Nobody had time to think – and time to wipe his face!)

‘A fiery temper and fiery heart
go hand-in-hand what a blast!
I have hurt Miss Sunshine and many things more
better catch her heart when it falls
I must escape this bad situation
rescue this date from certain destruction
Win her back, I must plan it
with gentle words, yes I can do it!
OK, here she comes from the ladies - she is done
Time for Mr Nobody, to wave his magic wand!

Miss Sunshine arrived back from the ladies and calmly sat down on her seat. She had been crying but had regained her composure and powdered her cheeks.

[Mr Nobody]
Grabbing hold of Miss Sunshine’s hand and placing it next to his heart he said:

‘Listen, listen - my darling do you hear?
My heart is beating fast – hear! hear!
Like a drum beat it goes thus:
Da-dum, Da-dum, Dada-dum!’

[Miss Sunshine]
‘Yes I can hear it. So you do have a heart! So what? What else do you have besides a heart? A heart is not enough!’

[Mr Nobody]
He put her hand on his head and said:

‘Feel my head, see how large?
Home to a brain, so vast
My brain so big and capable
Of solving puzzles and 12 Times tables!’

[Miss Sunshine]
‘Ok, so you have a HEART and you have a BRAIN. So what?’

[Mr Nobody]
He placed her hand on his arm:

‘Feel my muscles, see how big
Strong arms to open, any bottle or lid
of strawberry jam or tomato ketchup
These muscles can do anything - you betcha!’

[Miss Sunshine]
‘Ok, so you have a HEART and a BRAIN and strong MUSCLES. So what?’

[Mr Nobody]
He put her hand on his chest:

‘Feel my breathing, feel my lungs
Like an Olympic athlete, I can run
100 metres in 10 seconds; I can do it
Faster than a cheetah, faster than a bullet!’

[Miss Sunshine] (Still not impressed)
Ok, so you have a HEART and a BRAIN and MUSCLES and LUNGS. So what? Is that all!

[Mr Nobody]
Mr Nobody finally placed her hand over his mouth:

‘Feel these lips, feel my mouth
They can do magic – without a doubt
Feel my lips stretch into a smile
10 metres high, and as wide as a mile!

(Suddenly Miss Sunshine could feel his smile from behind her hand. He was smiling. Amazing!)

And my lips can do something else – not only smile
Watch out! here comes a kiss, planted with style……Moowah!’

...And so it was that Mr Nobody finally kissed Miss Sunshine…

And then?

And then the stars sang
The rainbow smiled
The moon shone
The sun rose
The comet blazed

And the clouds?

The clouds were nowhere to be seen.

-THE END-

The Vintage Vagabond - birthday post

"Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to the vag-uh-bonnnd
Happy birthday toooo me"


Alright. That's quite enough of that.


Yup - it's that time of year again when one celebrates another momentous heave-ho, another crawl, another mighty push, another milestone towards 'The End'. Yep - today is my birthday - again. Another one to add to my collection. As you get older you inevitably get wealthier - in birthdays!

Where I work everybody's birthday is marked by a cake and congratulatory clapping. Yes everybody claps and say's 'well done!'. I'm quite the cynical sort so I'm always thinking: Why the clapping? Well done for what? - it's not as if I actually did anything special? Apart from stay alive for another year and even that was automatic. I didn't have to remind my heart to beat, nor my muscles to contract or my stomach and mouth to eat. It was all so easy wasn't it! I didn't have to do anything. Just be me! So why the clapping? I suppose, to be fair, I did avoid getting run over by a car or a train. I did avoid getting into a lethal fight or falling off a cliff. Not that there are many cliffs here in London. I avoided being poisoned in a dodgy kebab restaurant (a more likely death scenario here in London).

So to conclude: I don't see the point of congratulating someone for their birthday. At least here now in the 21st century anyway. Maybe if I was living in the 14th - 18th centuries then it would be considered an achievement to have survived at all and not to have died from all manner of scourges such as bubonic plague, syphilis, cholera, gout, gut-worm, yellow-fever, the inquisition, insurrections, burning at the stake for heresy, child-birth (not relevant to me of course), wars, common infections and influenza.

But today, in the affluent year of 2011, we are more likely to die of diseases of plenty. What are these? A recent piece of research just out of Imperial College has revealed that 1 in 10 people on planet earth today is obese. Obese = BMI of 30kg per square metre of body area. BMI is a measure of your weight divided by your height. If you're BMI is between 18-25 then you're fine. Mine is 23. So I'm perfect (!). Literally...

Another disease of plenty is cancer (generally). The reason I call cancer a disease of plenty is because of two reasons:

a) It's generally a disease of old-age. The older you are the more likely you are of dying of cancer. Cancer is a recent and unnatural disease in the sense that people only get cancer if they live long enough. And only recently; with the phenomenal advances in medicine and preventive health; do we live long enough to get cancer. Our ancestors never died of cancer! They died of something else first. But not before having children - which is why they are our ancestors in the first place....but I am risking going on a tangent here! 

b) There is lots of evidence that the abnormal diet of plenty (high fat, cholesterol, wine, fine cheeses!, red meat etc) contribute to cancer risk. It seems these rich foods somehow wreak havoc with the DNA replication machinery of cells - thus giving rise to mutant cells that don't die after the requisite number of cell divisions...again I am risking going on a biochemical tangent here too! (always a risk with me - well, its not my fault I have a brain the size of a planet...the planet being Jupiter of course and not the earth (Jupiter = much bigger then the earth)).

Anyway, now that I have given my ego a well deserved birthday massage it's time to come down to earth again.

So yes it's my birthday today and yes it's no big deal; yet I some-why thought it important enough to warrant a blog entry. Alright, alright - it's Saturday morning, I'm in a cafe (Lemon Monkey) and I can't think of anything better to write about! Also (and I've just realised this after reading my previous birthday posts) - that I always end up writing about death and moribund stuff - on my birthday! Mm...Is that normal? Does my birthday really put me in touch with my mortality? And do I enjoy the fact that my birthday makes me realise that this life is finite - and that therefore all its ails and woes and joys and happinesses are mere ephemera...?


You know there is a certain pleasure to be had from the realisation that nothing lasts. That all is fleeting. The good and the bad. That one day you will once again be part of the nebular cloud from whence you were begotten. There's something strangely and beguilingly emancipating about this knowledge.

They say wine and cheeses get better with age. I hope the same applies to me.


Anyway, to finish of here's a birthday text I just received from my nieces:


Happy birthday 2 u
u live in a zoo
u look like a monkey
oh, and you smell like one 2.




...charming.

Adios.

The Vintage Vagabond.