Robert Poste's Child

Lovely, but out of reach for most of us unfortunately. Can't help thinking that men do seem to be much better served than women when it comes to clothes and shoes, and the concepts of style, workwear and quality sit together more easily. Wondering what this says about these industries' views of women.

david_carnell Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > RPC - not sure if it's your style but > http://www.old-town.co.uk/ do, imo, marvellous > British workwear of a pre-war ethos. > > I have some of their stuff and it's bomb proof. > Thanks. I could see myself wearing one or two of these in the right fabric. Just remembered another great one: http://www.johnsmedley.com/

???? Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > We are the second biggest car manufacturer in > Europe > We are global players in aerospace, > pharmaceuticals and erm, arms > We are creating a tech hub in App development only > behind Silicon Valley > We have a renaissance in specialist and high end > film production and have global expertise in many > animation/special effects > We are developing expertise in some very new > materials technology graphene etc > We export our TV formats and ideas globally > We are actually doing quite well in a large number > of high value growth areas in manufacturing and in > many of these 'creative manufacturing' areas > We have also of course still have a ginormous > service sector that adds massive value including > global leadership in many financial services and > related high value areas ( boo hiss from stage > left) > > > ...what we don,t have any more is half a million > plus miners doing dirty dangeorous jobs producing > high pollutant energy, 200,000 in producing steel, > a global commodity, or half a million in > shipbuilding or dockers. > > We aren't doing that bad Think that's stretching it a bit - I was talking more about tangible stuff that ordinary people use day to day and which twenty or thirty years ago could be relied on to be decent quality, and how some brands now seem sell 'Britishness' as an associated idea rather than British materials or workmanship. M&S is an example - the women's clothes on the whole aren't much better quality than you might find on a market stall. Perhaps it's partly partly the Primark / TK Maxx effect, I don't know. I like the Barbour example; I didn't know they were all still made here.

To be fair, we still produce some pretty good food - smoked salmon, cheese, meat, game, fruit etc and their products. They may sometimes be more expensive than the imported stuff in the supermarkets, but still within the reach of most people even if you only have them as an occasional treat.

I think Hotter has a shop in Kingston. I dismissed them because they seemed cheap quality - which makes me wonder whether this is part of the problem, that other countries make things not only more cheaply but better. Perhaps I'll revisit it now I know they're made in this country. As someone said earlier, it does seem like our thriving brands have a cast of 'British heritage' to them, which may be what the export market wants now that this country seems to be little more than a theme park for rich tourists. (Oh dear, make her a nice cup of tea, someone.) I've emailed Solovair to ask if they might be thinking of adding any female styles or colours to their range as at the moment it's the basic Doc Martens styles and mostly men's sizes. For warm boots I think Drapers (www.draper-of-glastonbury.com) and Celtic (www.celticandco.co.uk/footwear/womens-footwear/sheepskin-boots) may have some possibilities. I shall investigate further. I feel a crusade coming on.

Having been through all the shoe sites, it looks like hardly anyone's making decent quality shoes for women in this country, just for men. How are women supposed to break through the glass ceiling when they're wearing cr@p shoes all day? Has no one any idea how exhausting it is wearing shoes that are hard on your feet with no protection but a pair of tights, which probably haven't been made here either? Never mind ten years of stripper heels that you can't wear without causing actual damage to your feet and your achilles tendon. Really cross now.

Yes, loads of room, free and open till midnight. Just to the left of the station entrance as you go in. Also the location of the Brompton Dock and a lovely resident bile repairman. I'm a fan.

Thanks. Calmer now. Isn't that a depressingly short list, though? Thatcher's legacy just keeps giving.

If they were in a three and a half I might almost be tempted.

I wanted some good-quality, British-made boots for the winter. Morlands, the sheepskin boots that used to warm the feet of fighter pilots, are now apparently made in China - not that their website, which talks a lot about their heritage and use of traditional methods, tells you this. I'm told Doc Martens are now made in Indonesia, which may explain why the last few pairs I tried felt skimpier. There used to be a world-class shoe industry in this country. If you want good-quality boots that are made in Britain and you can't afford bespoke, where do you go? Are traditional brands now just selling the idea of what they used to produce? In the 80s shops like Church's, McAfee and Wildsmith sold similar shoes for both sexes. I suspect there are now more options for men than for women. Very disgruntled.

Stick it in the For Sale section and invite offers?

Some shops started getting Christmas stuff in late Aug / early Sept. If you add on the Jan sales period, there are people out there who'll have been eating mince pies and family tins of Quality Street for five months by the time supplies finally run out (just in time for three months of Easter eggs).

I think Christmas was more fun and meaningful when there wasn't a three or four month build-up to it. The Dutch are now thinking about Sinterklaas and get onto Christmas after that. In the US Thanksgiving does the same thing. We need a new holiday around the end of November.

I'm totally bored with the nightly fireworks too, but surely the existing laws on environmental health / noise / pollution / antisocial behaviour are enough for the Council to act if they get complaints? Banning them would just be criticised as more nanny state, and the injuries are unlikely to be high enough to make it a priority anyway, so I'm not convinced this is a realistic way to tackle the situation.

Careful with the tomato, that's for decoration only. Is ketchup one of your five a day?

I heard someone on the radio say this morning, 'Well, I've never heard a carrot scream'. Rather arrogant to assume that because it doesn't register to our limited range of senses, it can't exist. According to some Buddhists, at a microbiological level, a salad sandwich is carnage (vegage?). On the Food Prog on R4 this week it was said that mushrooms are somewhere between animal and vegetable, which is thought-provoking.

The one I find most annoying is 'fail', especially 'epic fail' and 'fashion fail'.

Sounds like 'Sam the Wheels', the bike repairer. Other bike shops also sell second hand stuff, such as Edwardes in Camberwell and the one near Peckham Lib.

rahrahrah Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The use of the phrase 'shabby chic' to describe > anything that's been badly painted. More like poor quality, knackered and would be practically unsellable without being badly painted. Vintage is another one - ageing, not good enough quality to rank as an antique but still fairly attractive in certain contexts. (Just realised this may mean I'm vintage - hurrah!)

Why don't you email the environmental health officer for Southwark? They won't do anything about it if no one complains. Or post a message on James Barber's thread asking his help.

Hope this doesn't offend anyone... When my sister first heard about the poppies at the Tower of London, she misheard and thought they said puppies. We both agreed this is an idea the Tower might like to explore once the exhibition has been taken down.

Sorry to hear about your bikes. Were they locked to a stand or something else? I often leave my bike there and it would be useful to know if some spots are more vulnerable than others. In past threads people also suggested Brick Lane, and another possibility later on would be the police auctions as they can't always reunited the bikes they find with their real owners. You could also look in the For Sale sections of this and the Herne Hill forums - you never know.

Wikipedia surreptitiously rewriting history. Most of us use it at times to look up things we don't know, despite the fact that whenever you look up something or someone you do know it's clear it's as often opinion or wishful thinking.

Someone in my family has a small house which was heavily underpinned in the past. They bought cash (it's outside London) with a view to a rebuild, which would have been fine, but so far they've been turned down for planning permission and are considering more of a conversion, which wouldn't need permission, but without a rebuild it may be difficult to get a bank to lend to them. Should they need to sell, that would also mean any future buyers would need to pay cash. Sorry to sound negative, but if it was me and I didn't feel excited about it as a project, and also confident I'd worked through the potential scenarios, then I'd tell myself it's not right and drop it.

I'm guessing you missed all the previous threads or the law of diminishing returns would surely have kicked in by now. Another news report this week about a fox entering a house through the cat flap and occupants only realising when it bit their baby's foot. Fortunately not as bad as the one last year when a baby lost a finger. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/11216320/Toddler-rushed-to-hospital-in-fox-attack.html