Answers Arent At The Back

Friday, September 02, 2005

'Top Form Old Bean'

'Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.' - Emily Post

I was going to do a post about the differences between good manners and etiquette, but after a while I found myself distracted by a bigger question. [All I wanted to prove was that wearing my usual attire of a baseball cap, hoody, trainers and combats into a 'posh' restaurant was not in fact bad manners, but purely bad etiquette. Etiquette that is based on outdated Edwardian and Victorian customs [But originally Roman], that we're used to suppress the masses and stimulate elitism within the higher echelons of society. Therefore having not a single shred of relevance in today's modern 'Individual' society... ergo... 'NO' I'm not taking my fcukin cap off.]

But then I got to thinking... Why do I wear what I wear?

I'd like to think, as I guess all of us would, that what we choose to wear is a directed reflection of our own individual personality, but alas I know this can't be true. How can it be when someone else designed whatever it is we're wearing. It can only be the case that we choose an image based on what 'we've been told' reflects a portrait of ourselves.

So what's going on? [Apart from the obvious advantage that I'm no longer allowed to be dragged around 'Bluewater' shopping]. Well the truth is I don't really know... :-/

Someone has decided what I should wear, so if I'm not being repressed by ancient etiquette, I'm being dictated to by some nameless modern fashion designer... [The obvious Irony here being my modern 'hooded uniform' might costs vastly more than the average etiquette suit...]

But the BIG question is why any of us feel the need to wear a particular 'Uniform' at all? Obviously taking into consideration not wearing one says as much about you as doing so does. So who's judging who here and why does it matter? Please assist :-)

Help Help I'm being repressed... Think I better book myself onto a sewing course... ;-)

Have a good weekend People :-)

Ciao Ciao
Confused from Chichester

I BLOG There4 I am

For J. the snob-babe :-)

5Comments:

gemmak said...: Lol...no Bluewater is a positive plus..... hell, that place is the worst of all it's ilk!

This is not about choice, it is about the opposite, lack of choice. The ettiquette thing stinks....don't ask how often I have been refused entry or service not because of my manners or behaviour but because I wore leathers. Manners are consideration, conformity and etiquette are about fear, the human animal has in it's psych a horror of being 'different' and often not the confidence to stand alone.......oh and the large design houses have manipulated that very insecurity for years. Gah.; 6:36 pm
Unknown said...: OK Gem - start with the bit about you in leathers. It is not the leather they object to. They may well have scars from previous occasions when someone in leather caused them a problem. They now associate leather with aggro and exercise their right to treat the leather wearer differently. General attitude is to be uncomfortable with anything different. What harm does a naked rambler really do? Etiquette has been defined as "The practices and forms prescribed by social convention or by authority" and that means that those who choose to dismiss convention are regarded with suspicion. Nothing wrong in being unconventional, nothing wrong in being out of ordinary. Just remember, both have a price.; 8:21 am
Anonymous said...: baseball caps are worn by Chav's, pikey's and muggers.; 11:21 am
Fletch said...: John: People compartmentalise others by there appearance. These compartments being instigated and perpetuated by the media, the state and society. It allows them to categorise individuals and ‘understand’ who people are without the need to even get to know them, to pre-judge them. But why? Haven’t we in society moved beyond the failings of conceptual stereotyping? Can’t we just think for ourselves?
Just another form of control...

Stig: And Baseball players...; 3:12 pm
Fletch said...: Gem: Leathers? We talking Bike Leathers here or something else? OK maybe don't answer that :-); 3:34 pm

Blogroll Me!

The Register - Biting the hand that feeds IT

"I know why you're here. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer...."

**********

D: "Where is everybody, Hol?"
H: "They're dead, Dave."
D: "Who is?"
H: "Everybody, Dave."
D: "What, Captain Hollister?"
H: "Everybody's dead, Dave."
D: "What, Todhunter?"
H: "Everybody's dead, Dave."
D: "What, Selby?"
H: "They're all dead. Everybody's dead, Dave."
D: "Petersen isn't, is he?"
H: "Everybody is dead, Dave."
D: "Not Chen?"
H: "Gordon Bennett! Yes! Chen, everybody. Everybody's dead, Dave"
D: "Rimmer?"
H: "He's dead, Dave. Everybody's dead. Everybody is dead, Dave!"
D: "Wait. Are you trying to tell me everybody's dead?"
H: "I wish I'd never let him out in the first place."

**********

"I know most of you have been where I am tonight: the crash site of unrequited love. You've asked yourself, how did I get here? What was it about--was it her smile, Was it the way she crossed her legs, the turn of her ankle? The poignant vulnerability of her slender wrists? What are these elusive and ephemeral things that ignite passion in the human heart?...."

"That's an age-old question; it's perfect food for thought on a bright midsummer's night. Hey, you said it best, Will: "Love looks not with eyes but with the mind, And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind." Yeah....."

**********

"Well one day I was at home threatening the kids when I looks out through the hole in the wall and sees this tank pull up and out gets one of Dinsdale's boys, so he comes in nice and friendly and says Dinsdale wants to have a word with me, so he chains me to the back of the tank and takes me for a scrape round to Dinsdale's place and Dinsdale's there in the conversation pit with Doug and Charles Paisley, the baby crusher, and two film producers and a man they called 'Kierkegaard', who just sat there biting the heads of whippets and Dinsdale says 'I hear you've been a naughty boy Clement' and he splits me nostrils open and saws me leg off and pulls me liver out and I tell him my name's not Clement and then... he loses his temper and nails me head to the floor..."

**********

"If u hold back anything Ill kill ya. If u bend the truth or I think your bending the truth, Ill kill ya. If u forget anything Ill kill ya. In fact ur gonna have to work very hard to stay alive. Now do u understand everything Ive said? Because if u dont, Ill kill ya...."

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"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the iniquities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. "

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The details of my life are quite inconsequential... very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds- pretty standard really. At the age of twelve I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles. There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking- I highly suggest you try it.

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Love comes when manipulation stops. When you think more about the other person than about his or her reaction to you. When you dare to reveal yourself fully. When you dare to be vulnerable.

Friday, September 02, 2005

'Top Form Old Bean'

5Comments:

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