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Dandies, Æsthetes & Flâneurs
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| The Chap Olympiad 2009 |
[13 Jul 2009|11:13am] |
Readers with a long memory might recall my thrilling adventures at the Chap Olympiad last year. Obviously, as I'd declared myself the winner of the Scoundrels Challenge last year I had to attend this year as I had a title to defend and so on Saturday I dressed myself up to the nines and headed off.
For those of you who don't know what the Chap Olympics is, The Chap is a periodical whose editorial stance is "What would an eccentric English Gent make of the modern world?", and their Olympiad is an annual event devoted to dressing well, drinking, and taking part in exciting sporting events like the Moustache tug-of-war, Umbrella Jousting and the Martini Relay.
I think, over the course of the day, I learned three important lessons.
1) If you want to get photographed by tourists in London, all you have to do is dress smartly, pop a hat on at a rakish angle, and hold a singsong around the Play me I'm yours piano in Soho Square.
2) If you are dressed up, London beggars simply won't believe you when you when you say that you have no cash at all - even if this is entirely true - and become abusive as a result.
3) If I enter the Scoundrels Challenge next year, I'm wearing a gumshield.
I made my way to Bedford Square gardens with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) robinbloke as my valet, Langridge. This proved to be an exceptionally successful move, as I didn't have to carry my own bags, hold my umbrella or queue for food or drinks all day. As a quality of life enhancer, I heartily recommend engaging a man to do all that sort of thing. Valets - everyone should have one.
Anyway, arriving at the gardens we discovered that taking your own booze onto the site was prohibited (They had a drinks stand in the gardens) and they were searching bags on the way in; however, I must have an honest face as they didn't check mine and so I ambled in with a few bottles of decent plonk and a hipflask, which helped the afternoon swim by in a most agreeable fashion with delightful company.
I'd arrived fashionably late, which meant that most of the events were already fully subscribed (which I thought a little bit off, as many of the people taking part in the events were the organisers themselves. Poor show all round), but I registered as a competitor and hoped for the best. Alas, I missed out on the Hop, Skip and G&T and the Plate of cucumber sandwiches discus but, reasoning that I wasn't there to play fair, I elbowed my way to the front of the queue for the three legged trouser limbo. This event involved two people wearing an oversized pair of three-legged trousers between them and walking a short course before limbo-ing under a pole. Naturally, I couldn't allow Langridge to share a pair of trousers with me and so I popped them on and he carried his half. I ambled the length of the course, saluting gents with my brolly and tipping my hat to the ladies, and when we got to the limbo pole Langridge kindly raised it to a height sufficient for me to continue unimpeded. Unfortunately, this, for reasons which escaped me, was not sufficient for me to win the event. I consider myself cheated.
And so the highlight of the afternoon drew near. The Scoundrels Challenge. One of the toughest sporting events known to man, the Scoundrels Challenge was entered as a display sport in the 1996 Altlanta Olympics but was withdrawn after seventeen deaths in the first round. The event involves walking up to a lady and acting in as caddish a manner possible until driven away by a ringing slap. The winner is the man with the reddest cheek but the wryest smile. I've spent pretty much my entire life in training for this event.
Langridge and I took to the course.
"I say, Langridge", I said, indicating a nearby beauty. "Acquire me this lady, would you, there's a good fellow."
Langridge made an enquiry as to the lady's hourly rates.
"More than you could afford!" She replied.
"Don't be so sure", I replied with an encouraging leer. "I have three, perhaps as many as four shillings in my wallet?"
The lady gave an outraged squawk and then...well, if I'm being honest I'm not entirely sure what happened next. Whatever it was, though, it left a ringing in my ears and a taste of blood in my mouth. As colonel_maxim observed more then fifteen minutes later, "Good heavens; you can still see the marks her fingers left in your neck".
Needless to say, I sacked Langridge on the spot.
So it was that I retired hurt from the event. It's difficult - nay, impossible - to maintain a wry smile whilst attempting to straighten your nose, and so I couldn't complete the competition. So I lost my title - but, seeing as I only got it by cheating and villainy in the first place, I really can't complain too much.
Anyway, plenty more pictures from the event can be found here.
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| British Party |
[13 Jul 2009|02:58am] |
A little while ago the ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) unoffopday Society took it upon ourselves to host a welcome home shindig for our member and friend, Mr Haslam (in the white linen suit) and I thought I might share some of the better pictures from our set.
( cut for your convenience )
The party was hosted in my own modestly sized garden, but we still managed to enjoy a game of boules (we didn't have a smooth enough pitch for bowls, so we made do with the French equivalent) and that most traditional of British games... Garden Jenga.
To view the whole gallery and more of our antics, please visit our site: http://www.stoneorchid.co.uk/ufd/
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| Men and shoes |
[28 Jun 2009|09:24pm] |
I had to repair my shoe rack today and, in the process, winnowed out five pairs of unneeded shoes (bringing me down to 15 pairs).
In the process, I wondered to myself about the relationship between a man and his shoes. The cliché about women being obsessed with shoes has been in heavy rotation for decades, but few seem to consider a man's perspective on shoes. Do other men regard shoes as merely a means to an end -- a way to protect ones feet from the elements and prevent one from looking ridiculous in a suit? -or are there unconscious associations that deserve exploration? I can guess what Beau Brummell would've said, but what of Freud or Jung? Is there one type of shoe that means more than others to any given man? Would I be revealing some quirk of my psyche if I said that I feel the most comfortable in a pair of side-zip chelsea boots? And you, sir?
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| How do you refine yourselves? |
[22 Jun 2009|06:59am] |
Dear community:
A brief question: how do you refine yourselves? What standards of self-development do you set yourself?
What standards and ethics do you try to live by?
Thanks!
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| What is Refinement? |
[19 Jun 2009|11:57am] |
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I'm curious to know what others' hold for their definition of refinement. Is it a certain way of dressing? Or can one be refined in jeans and a t-shirt so long as there is an air of poise and properness? What century's (or decade's) manners are most refined?
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| Liberace |
[10 Jun 2009|04:05am] |
There's only so much one can learn of the modern day fop that was the great, late Liberace from the the internet.
The costumiery, the flamboyance and the utter disregard for taste and style are what appeals to me about him. His taste is so poor it seems to come out the other side and become theatrically fantastic with such gaudy baubles as his mirror-tiled Rolls Royce and his pink suits.
So I ask you, gentle readers, to offer me just a simple thing which is your opinion, whether good or ill, of this most flamboyant of men.
It would help me greatly to better inform the members of my humble Society, with due credit returned to those that might be able to help me here, of course.
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[16 May 2009|02:02pm] |
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music |
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Mannequin - The Kovenant |
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Hello there!
I have recently joined Live-journal and I'm interested into aesthetics, literature, history, photography and music mainly. I'm also very interested into "les poètes maudits" and those who could be described as one. I found this community interesting and this is why I joined it :)
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| Smoking in the Future |
[24 Apr 2009|08:18am] |
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mood |
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chipper |
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music |
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Prince Caspian soundtrack - Harry Gregson-Williams |
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In response to mr_roper's post the other day, which I sadly didn't see until now, I'd like to find out people's thoughts on the new, safer means of enjoying a cigarette, pipe, or cigar. Electronic versions of these age old vices have been updated to modern health standards, being of no harm to nearby third-parties, and in the case the users opt for the nicotine-less cartridges, absolutely of no harm to themselves either.
Introduced in Europe a few years ago, they started making an appearance in the US two months ago. Will these devices be the new means of expressing a storied form of relaxation and expression?
The following video is a 2 min. exhibition of how the leading company's product works. The major thing the video fails to mention is that besides being able to select the strength of desired nicotine, the "smoker" can also opt to buy the aforementioned "nicotine-less" cartridges, for those of us that love the ritual and motions associated with smoking, but don't want the hardening of the arteries and other negative side-effects of nicotine!
Pipes and different e-cigarettes and e-cigars available here. Does this portend that smoking will soon resume in the workplace?
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| Smoking |
[19 Apr 2009|03:00am] |
If there's one thing I've learned it's that smoking - allbeit it a passtime that's hazardous to health - can be immensely enjoyable.
For a long while I've been the one at parties that's enjoyed sharing what others are smoking, but recently, I've taken to smoking a pipe, to enjoying my own little bit of perilous vice. Tonight I discovered that non-tobacco tobacco is okay, but not perfect and that cigars are some sort of flammable ambrosia.
I encourage those of you willing to partake, after a meal, a long day or just as a little treat of a fat cigar or a pipe of rich, flavoursome tobacco. There's something very satisfying and fulfilling about this particular vice that doesn't have the unpleasant aftertaste and stale fragrance of cigarettes I'm not sure I have the eloquence to express.
Of course, do be aware of the health risks involved but, as with all things, in moderation I believe it can do little harm.
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| Ghosts of Past and Present, Autographed |
[03 Apr 2009|02:22pm] |
I'd read about turn-of-the-century autograph book "The Ghosts of My Friends" quite some time ago, and after patiently scouring ebay managed to score the ideal- one older, more decrepit book filled with signatures and one empty book in excellent condition. I've finally photographed the former, and will begin to fill the latter with signatures of my friends.
Here's how it works: the book's pages are pre-creased; your friends sign their name in ink on the semi-glossy pages and fold it over to create a personalized Rorschach blot, to which they can then add little legs, arms and features, should they so wish (only one or two examples in my book had this). The same company created a book for 'Hand-O-Grams', something most of us have done in Kindergarten- leaving one or more thumbprints on a page, you doodle a little picture on them. Birds seemed rather popular.
This book features signatures from three periods- 1909-1912, when the owner of the book had her friends and family sign the majority of the pages in a heavier brown-black ink, 1922 & 1930, when another relative picked up the book and had some repeat signatures along with new ones in a thinner black ink, and on the back of some pages, 1943 from a younger generation of the family done in a blue ink. The images are presented in the order they appear in the book.
( Click onward for additional ghosts )
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| A Grand Day Out |
[23 Mar 2009|10:11am] |
It seems like London is really the city to be in for this sort of thing.
Tweed Run, January 2009
More smashing photos beyond the link! I would have loved to be in this event.
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| Waistcoat |
[22 Mar 2009|02:07am] |
I find myself struggling a little for inspiration. I've visited my usual online haunts, had a browse through various books I possess and yet I cannot seem to get the inspiration I want.
I hope that you are able to help me.
My much loved everyday waistcoat is on its last threads and it is time to replace it. It would be a simple affair to copy the shape of it and source the fabric to make one identically, but that seems somehow anathema to my tailoring habit.
So, what I'm looking for is inspiration for a practical, everyday waistcoat. Colour would have to be neutral and dark, but could have a subtle pattern. I'm tempted to do a double-breasted waistcoat but I haven't seen any varieties that strike me as particularly interesting so would settle for single breasted.
I must note that an assymetrical closure would be very much enjoyable, but I would have to make some jackets and coats to match so I suspect I shall save that particular frippery for another time.
Yours in humble appreciation of your sartorial knowledge,
A.
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[21 Mar 2009|11:57am] |
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The rather intriguing website for The Witchery in Edinburgh has a menu that touts the house ("Lindisfarne") oysters, but tags them with a warning to "avoid spirits" with the oysters. Now--- I can't imagine raw oysters with Scotch, but...I thought white wine was proper with oysters. Was I wrong on that? What are some guidelines for wine/beer/al with raw oysters? ny thoughts?
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| 1980s New Wave chic |
[25 Feb 2009|01:44am] |
I'd like to do this (or something similar) with my hair
But I haven't the faintest idea where to begin. Has anyone in this fine community got any suggestions I might try? I'm willing to retrim what I've got if need be.
( current hair and latest jacket )
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[19 Feb 2009|09:37pm] |
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| "Don't tell me. I'm not interested." |
[13 Jan 2009|07:53pm] |
Then
Me: How are you?
They: Fine, thank you. (Or: So-so.) (Or: Don't ask.) (Or some jokey kind of a phrase.)
Now
Me: How are you?
They: Can you keep a secret?
Me: No.
They: (some kind of an intimate story or things I'm not supposed to know)
Have I acquired "father confessor" qualities in the last few years or is there a major change in manners going on, at least here in Vienna? I sometimes even ask them to spare me, but with frustrating regularity that is regarded as a joke. And I can't say "I'm not interested" to someone who tells me their personal drama. So, if possible, I excuse myself as being very busy and just go somewhere quiet, but I don't like this.
NB: 1. I feel honoured, whenever friends tell me secrets, but complete strangers do the same thing all the time.
2. I'm talking about RL, not the internet. (I'm aware that there are other rules here.)
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| any sources for the original 1270 par Frapin...? |
[17 Nov 2008|07:12pm] |
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...there is a very good fragrance by Frapin which has just been reformulated and now is not attractive to me anymore. Does anyone know of a source of the original, made in 2002 and up until this summer...? The bottle was quite flat and rounded, *not* the new squared one that fits in with the rest of the line...most places in the world appear to be out, so this is a last attempt...thank you in advance! This house is most famous for cognac, but has made half-a-dozen very attractive scents in the last few years...
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