Clothes shopping

I decided to devote some energy to clothes shopping yesterday afternoon. While I did actually spend some money – which is far from always the case – I have seldom seen such an acreage of things I would never want to wear.

Apart from a lot of horrible synthetic fabrics and unflattering colours (orange, mustard, chartreuse) a number of my pet hates were visible – frilled T-shirts, tops ornamented with beads and paste ‘gems’, cropped trousers, jackets with ‘skirt’ cuffs. And I especially dislike holding a garment up to the light and being able to see through it (and we’re talking T-shirts and cardigans here, not nighties). Yes, I look better in substantial stuff anyway, but to me flimsy equals bad value. Some of these things are going to look wrecked by the time they’ve been worn twice, and even worse if they’re washed.

K and I are going to a formal occasion (ladies are requested to wear hats!) tomorrow, and I think the newest thing I shall be wearing are my sandals, bought last year. If I could wear shoes at the moment then it would be courts, and the newest thing would probably be my evening jacket, which is about four years old. My dress is circa 1989 Laura Ashley, and I haven’t yet seen another one I like as well – but then contrary to what all the marketing types in the fashion industry would insist, I like my clothes so much (when I do buy them) that I want them to last for ever.

A life outside the news

It puzzles me sometimes. I watch the news on television, and I often struggle to relate it to real life, at least as lived in our house.

Millions raised for this or that disaster: not from us (we continue to support the charities we normally do – they need to be kept going too).

People are confused – sorry, Confused. It doesn’t matter what it’s about, either. Heaven help us, people are even confused about the effects of alcohol, I don’t know how, considering that never a week goes by without someone, usually several someones, bobbing up to tell us about the awful effects of drinking. It’s even bad for you if you don’t do it, which must be some kind of record. We continue to have a bottle of wine between us a few times a week with food, as we always have.

Everybody is in trouble with debt. Happily, not here, or at least not yet. And not if we can help it.. But then we didn’t even like having a mortgage (which is only organised debt, after all) and paid it off as soon as we could. Cautious Baskets R Us.

Everybody wants a second home, or a property abroad, or property to rent. Really? One house is quite enough to look after, thank you, even before these Credit Crunched times. And you can only live in one at a time, anyway.

Shoppers are having a spending spree on the high street. Or not. Meanwhile, we continue as normal. I still spend money on books and food, and now and again buy a few new clothes or some piece of domestic equipment. But I really prefer to buy things that will last – I ‘ve never been able to understand shopaholicism, except as a mental disorder, and I certainly don’t understand the craze for having everything new all the time.

I don’t think this is just us, either. I guess I first really noticed this phenomenon in a major way in connection with Princess Diana’s death. The country was prostrate with grief, we were told – life had virtually come to a standstill, with memorial tributes and people sobbing into their hankies wherever you went. Well, no, actually: OK, maybe this will be more visible when I get to work. The citizens of Bethnal Green are perhaps more inclined to wear their hearts on their sleeves than many. Nope, not a thing. And this is the area that was brought to a standstill for the Kray brothers’ funerals, too. I gather that when Diana died it was fairly awful for the staff at Kensington Palace, who had to spend hours mopping up tearful visitors, but that was where she lived, after all.

The media do a superb job of making things up out of whole cloth, sometimes.