Posts by JackElder
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Does it make the food taste better? My father-in-law was recently taken aback when I told that I have never owned a suit (other than a crushed velvet horror in the 1970s). Just wondering if anyone else has remained suitless.
Actually, the point I was trying to make about owning a dinner jacket was that I'd bought it simply because I needed one; that is, I was going to enough black-tie events that it became a sensible economy to just shell out for one. I thought the attendance at the events, rather than the ownership, was more of a class marker.
That said, many of the worst, most grinding jobs I've had have required me to wear a shirt & tie. And to be honest, several of the black tie events I went to were mainly about everyone getting to dress up in a black tie and play casino games with play money so they can pretend to be James Bond. So I don't think that clothing is necessarily a class marker in Western society.
I've never worked out whether I'm middle class or upper class. If it helps, I own the means of production (well, a laptop), so I'm pretty sure I'm not working class (though I do work); can anyone tell me how to tell whether I'm upper class or not?
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When I were a lad, I once asked my father the meaning of the word "bourgeoisie". He told me. I then asked if we were bourgeois. His response: "God, I hope so."
Disclaimer: I bought a dinner jacket a few years ago because it was more cost effective to own one than to keep renting the damn things.
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Q: How do you spot an extroverted [stereotypical profession/social group]?
A: They stare at _your_ shoes when talking to you.
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There's nothing more startling than someone yelling your name disapprovingly in public. Especially when you're doing something that could be disapproved of.
The problem is, that I'm almost always doing something that someone disapproves of. There's a lot of uptight people out there, you know?
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Speaking of threadjacks; when I was growing up, I never, ever, ever met anyone else called Jack. The first other person I met called Jack was a Japanese bloke living in Christchurch who'd picked the name because he thought it was pretty generic and no-one could pronounce his real name properly. At the time, I was 22. Every class I had growing up was guaranteed at least three Michaels, two Katherines and a Scott; never a Jack. Jack had clearly been pigeonholed as an archaism; it was, indeed, your grandfather's name.
And then it happened.
Titanic.
And after the fluttering hearts left the movie theatre, people starting thinking "hey, that protagonist had a cool name - somehow combining an unpretentious old-world charm with thrusting practicality, can-do vigour and throbbing sex appeal." And one or two families started to choose the name Jack for their newborns. Then it spread - oh, you know that Sandra's mate named her son Jack? It's a nice name, isn't it? It snowballed, and lo: Jack has been the most popular boys name in the UK and NZ for quite a few years. Several of my friends have even named their children after me; they have a flimsy story about a beloved grandfather, but I reckon it was my speech at their wedding that kicked it over the line.
So all through my youth, any time someone called out "Jack!", I could be sure it was for me. Then for the last decade, it's bloody everywhere. It's taken quite a mental adjustment to stop snapping my head around anytime I hear someone call my name; these days, in the vast majority of cases, it's to call over some tow-headed little moppet to have their nose wiped or summat.
Which was nowhere near as confusing as the time that I started a job in a company of 800 people, sharing an office with the only other person there also called Jack... with only one phone line. Oh, the hilarious hi-jinks that resulted. Less than you'd think.
But I digress. Though, in context, I'm not sure if there's really a gress anyway.
Recordari: I probably wasn't drinking in the same clubs as you - at the time I was 15, so was mainly drinking in some of the more sedate clubs in Roppongi (Gas Panic and the like). Ah, a misspent youth.
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Then I was lucky enough (wanker alert) to see Beats International live in Tokyo in 1991, playing at the Bunkamura in Shibuya. That was bloody fantastic.
We might have crossed paths at the time; I was living in Shibuya (technically Naka-Meguro, but I caught the train from Shibuya station) in '91. Small world. Tokyo, slightly oddly, more so.
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just in case that wasn't an archly rhetorical question...
It was, and she is.
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Iain Banks made the point once that a full size Land Rover could, with very minimal alteration, qualify as a bus (where the definition was a vehicle that was able to seat 11), and thus escape the London congestion charge. So you may find that depending on how you define bus, many of our wealthier citizens may already be driving them.
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As immortalised in Golem's excellent tune, "Warsaw is Khelm":
The album version has guest vocals by Amanda Palmer, whoever she is. It's a good album: neo-klezmer fun, with lyrics mostly in English.
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I know a bloke who makes a few bob on the side refurbishing old bikes and selling them on eBay. He reckons that the fastest way to get a bike to sell is to put a basket on the front. It's the accessory du now!