Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Hey...like I'd feel cool in it man. Liberated and relaxed yet somehow fitter.


Imagine a lithe, off duty corporate ninja and you'll get the picture.


If only my fair lady agreed. She took one look and simply said "dress your age".


But then if pushed, I feel much the same way about 40-something women with bad legs wearing denim mini skirts.

Mr. Ben, I wear one - and am WAAAAY older than you.


Actually, that probably doesn't help you...:-S


If you want one, get one. But, for the record, given your stature and body shape, I think you would look pretty cool in one - whereas I just look like a suspicious smurf who doesn't give a damn.

?When I became a man I put away childish things including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.? ? C.S. Lewis.


Although I wouldn?t advise living your life according to sound bites of received wisdom whose only qualification for being good advice is that they originate from someone who manage to become a household name.


Next thing you?ll be listening to advice from pricks who are somehow able to personify the concept of a quotation and whose only qualification for offering advice is that they can click, ?Post Message?.

In 1990 (aged well over 20) I'd been to a Stop the War bash at the Red Rose Club in Islington. Missed my last train to Sydenham and ended up in West Norwood. It was a winter's night and I had an orangy Gap hooded sweat shirt. I'd cleared a load of personal crap out of my desk draw at work and put it into a large Brixton Cycles dispatch cyclists bag.


So I am too tight to get a cab so I'll jog the two miles or so home, with my hood up and the bag over my shoulder. I see a police metro coming the other way, and I think if they stop me I'll ask for a lift home. Low and behold they turn the car round and in deed stop and question me.


I pull off the hood and the male and female cop (who look about 15) are quite astonished. What do you think they said?

They said, "ohh, we didn't realise that you were so old", and then refused to offer me a lift. But what do you think they actually thought? You will have to make a couple of assumptions about me, and an obvious one about plod.


(of course they could have said that I was only 24 minutes(hours) from Tulse Hill)

Seeing a guy with a hoodie, running with a bag over his shoulder, after midnight, the cops thought that I was a burglar. When they saw my age (28 or 29 at the time) and my ethnicity, they were quite surprised, expecting a young black man. Now this was over twenty years ago, when the Met were actually acknowledged as being institutionally racist. Maybe it is not like that nowadays but it still makes me (and friends both black and white) chuckle and reminds me of an unsuble Not the Nine O'clock News sketch. Odd link here: www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=169275.0

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Latest Discussions

    • But all those examples sell a wide variety of things,  and mostly they are well spread out along Lordship Lane. These two shops both sell one very specific thing, albeit in different flavours, and are just across the road from each other. I don't think you can compare the distribution of shops in Roman times to the distribution of shops in Lordship Lane in the twenty first century. Well, you can, but it doesn't feel very appropriate. Haa anybody asked the first shop how they feel? Are they happy about the "healthy competition" ?
    • ED is included in the 17 August closure set (or just possibly 15 August, depending on which part of the page you trust more) listed at https://metro.co.uk/2025/07/25/full-list-25-poundland-stores-confirmed-close-august-23753048/. Here incidentally are some snippets from their annual reports, at https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/02495645/filing-history. 2022: " during the period we opened 41 stores and closed 43 loss-making/under-performing stores.  At the period-end we were trading from 821 stores in the UK, IoM and ROI. ... "We renogotiated 82 leases in the year, saving on average 45% versus the prior lease agreement..." 2023: "We also continued to improve our market footprint through sourcing better store locations, opening 53 and closing 51 stores during the year." 2024:  "The ex-Wilco stores acquired in the prior year have formed a core part of this strategy to expand our store network.  We favour quality over quantity and during the period we opened 84 stores and closed 71 loss-making/under-performing ones."
    • Ha! After I posted this, I thought of lots more examples. Screwfix and the hardware store? Mrs Robinson and Jumping Bean? Chemists, plant shops, hairdressers...  the list goes on... it's good to have healthy competition  Ooooh! Two cheese shops
    • You've got a point.  Thinking Leyland and Screwfix too but this felt different.
Home
Events
Sign In

Sign In



Or sign in with one of these services

Search
×
    Search In
×
×
  • Create New...