Happily Ever After
Life in The Rural Retreat with a beautiful wife, three cats, garden wildlife, a camera, a computer – and increasing amounts about running
Earlier posts can be found on Adventures of a Lone Bass Player, where this blog began life. Recent entries can be found here.
Shopping For Style
by Russell Turner - 17:09 on 14 September 2017
Unlike Matchgirl, whose clothes racks feature abundant apparel (some of it with labels intact), shopping for new shirts and trousers has never been my favourite pastime. Being taller than average doesn’t help – inside legs in high street stores all stop well short of mine – but I suspect I still wouldn’t be a dedicated follower of fashion even if clothes were easier to come by.
So when something is so worn out that replacement is unavoidable, or when I need, for instance, a black shirt because the new City Limits dress code for functions demands it, I turn to specialist outsize shops. None, of course, are closer than Glasgow and Edinburgh, so mail order it must be.
High & Mighty is the big name, and has prices to match, so my outfitter of choice is Birmingham-based John Banks, even though, in common with other stores of that ilk, outsize mainly means short legs and large waists. However, by the time I’ve filtered out the attire aimed at the more portly person there are usually one or two choices left to fit my frame.
Yesterday, after much perusal of the JB website, I crossed my fingers and ordered a plain black shirt, a lightly patterned black shirt, and some black jeans of the style I’ve bought from them several times before. Matchgirl would have been impressed if she wasn’t in Shetland.
They arrived today; bonus points to JB for not adding a Highland penalty to its next-day delivery charges. That was the good news. The bad news was that the jeans were too long (as I eschew the concertina-leg look favoured by some fashion victims), the plain shirt was made for a wearer with a Superman-sized chest, and the patterned shirt, though a good fit, featured a Harry Hill-style collar, well disguised in the website’s photo. Such are the perils of internet shopping.
I may be over-reacting (although definitely not with regard to the plain shirt). Matchgirl will be able to offer an objective view when she returns tomorrow. As for Saturday’s City Limits wedding gig, I may have to buck the dress code. Nobody looks at the bass player anyway.
With luck we’ll soon have a few more weddings in the diary. After several late nights spent mixing and editing, Keith released our first show reel into the wild yesterday. Its appearance on Facebook has already brought in three wedding enquiries plus the possibility of headlining Kinlochbervie Gala next year.
I might even have a decent black shirt by then.
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