Oh it's the classic standard "boots required simply for survival purposes"
It goes with the standard "Autumn Work Friday Casual" outfit. Once it gets into Autumn and Winter everyone swaps to much more old fashioned clothes I find, and generally almost everyone wears either grey, black or blue. I note men's waistcoats appear to be more of a thing this year.
And I haven't shined my shoes since school I'm afraid, there's no point they get muddy in seven nanoseconds.
Riding boot-ish. knee-high, low heel, no decoration but not the stiff leather of actual riding boots. If someone said, "Quick, get on this horse!" you could fit your heels in the stirrups and be off. btw, have you ever ridden? My mother decided it was vital to my 'uppercrust' training to send me to lessons. Frankly all we did was walk them in circles and towards the end of the year we were allowed to attempt a trot. I found it a silly way to spend time and money as I was not one of those girls who goes crazy over horses. As i sit here now I realize as part of our timed lesson we groomed, fed, mucked and equiped the horse before riding and reverse at the end. So our parents were paying for us to do the entire stable work for the owners. Nice for them! Then a mean horse tried to throw me and I was ,"I QUIT." and everyone was "You have to get right back on! It's a famous saying!" "No, I do not. It's a stupid saying. Fool me once is a saying. I'm going with that." but I prob told this story before
Ah exploited child labour! lol. I think you made the right decision in not getting back on, when horses have had enough they've had enough. You almost certainly can ride better than I can however.
I have been on horses, cause they were a fairly regular feature at local market town. There's one of the big race tracks there, like in terms of "Ascot" size race track, it's fairly huge. Like, it's so big, over this summer it's been doubling for the 1936 Berlin Olympics Stadiums in some film that's being shot about the Nazis Olympics, which means yes it was covered in Swastika Flags and some of the locals were dressed up in SS Uniforms, but yeah it's pretty large. The Annual Race has been held there since 1776. So yeah there's a lot of horses around, there's a training ground for the foals and a hospital for the sick horses in the next door villages.
I was on Skype with my Dad a few months back and all of a sudden he just up and left, returning five minutes later with a bucket of manure. Because he'd heard the horses go past on the road and he wanted to get the manure "for the roses" before any of the neighbours got there first. He keeps a shovel and bucket by the back door.
...although I am wary of horses, which is why I can't ride. I think it started in the woods we used to play in which has the horse graveyard....yeah it's possibly that. Plus the horses tend to graze on public land, which means when you're walking places they on mass as a group want to come and mug you for food. I'm still worried about walking past them, but as a small child I'd take different paths to not go where they were. They see you entering the path and a group of six of them would just canter up to you and you could never tell if they were going to stop or not. It's worse down in the more rural areas down south where some of my relatives live, I once remember waking up in one of the cottage bedrooms cause I could hear the horseshoes on the cobbles and there was a horse outside the open window next to my head. They're basically stupid massive animals that can squish you and kick you and trample you. I'm fine with them as long as they stay at least forty feet away from me.
This is the place in my home village where I used to play when I was little, if you look carefully on the right you can see a gang of horses coming up in a line to ambush me cause I've just crossed the stile, the second you cross the stile they file up to you. There's a different group that lives on the other side of the river as well so you can't use either path on either banks to get where you need to go unhindered. They've got the area locked down from horsekind, and have for at least the 20 years that I can remember. Also the swan in the river you have to be careful around, because they expect you to give them a certain level of respect. The family of Swans that live there are fucking haughty things which just sail up and down the river being haughty.
Polish keeps the leather soft and helps waterproof against the muck. However it is a right pain with boots. Just do the shoe part of the boot? ;)
The men here who are apt to wear waistcoats with suits are also apt to wear pocket squares. Possibly a fob and chain. I like the playful dressers. Waistcoats as a trend? I kinda hope we get it. Is this an anti-frumpy Pres thing? Can I say it is? How is brexit going?
Men's fashions here certainly got a lot more formal from 2011 onwards, once the recession hit and globally things started to go more wrong, it may be that increased competition for work means they've got to put more effort in. Also [and I do like noticing what the men are wearing :) as I walk around] they've definitely started dressing more "military", by which I mean they're wearing either suits which are basically Military Officer dress suits or stuff which looks like they're going on some sort of special ops Operation. I think that's also to communicate that they're capable and mean business to people who might give them money. They're actually more and more moving away from the "Officer Mess Suits" into more "operations clothes" probably because they have to look like they're fighting. I actually think men tend to dress to impress other men, not women. If they want to impress women they do their hair, take their tie off and loosen up. Men dress down for women and up for business, whereas women dress up for men and down for business. Would be my observation.
We have been trending towards casual. Stampeding towards it. No ties, yoga pants, wild beards, messy hair, etc. But i have seen a certain shift, now that you mention. The wild beards are getting tamed. Women's hair is going back up into cleaner styles. Maybe suits are back? suppose it is rump and his ties pushing it along? conservatives?
shapes. edit to say that women's hair trend i see right now is putting it up into shapes. like a fan or double bubble or like that
In the 1995 - 2008 period it was no ties, yoga pants, hoodies and baseball caps and nike sneakers. Very American style, and the buildings that got built looked American. And we got Shopping Malls, Big Supermarkets and McDonald's. And Pop Tarts and Nickelodeon. I think it was because the pound was so strong against the dollar so everyone was just going to the US all the time. I must have told you this before, but when we went to the US every summer we took empty suitcases and on Day 1 my Mum took us to the Malls and told us to buy up everything. Because it was vastly, vastly cheaper. Obviously, every single day of my school life I wore uniform, so for 300 days of the year I wore the same damn outfit anyway, of the remaining non-Uniform stuff probably 80+% was purchased in America. Certainly all my sneakers were. And that's what basically everyone did. So we all dressed like Americans cause that's where we were purchasing the clothes.
The Economic and Political Change in the last decade probably shifted us to more conservative clothing choices also in part because there's less shopping in the United States occurring. Also, since The Tenth Doctor, wearing suits, tie and converses became universal amongst men under 30. He probably did actually genuinely lead to an fashion uptick in suit wearing. For people brought up on Harry Potter and The Tenth Doctor, ties, blazers and suits are actually what their icons wear on a day to day basis. Sherlock led to a noticeable rise in swishy coats and scarves. Bond coming back then led to the men over 30 wearing the suits and tuxes as well. It'll be a combination of all these things.
Back in the 90s and early 2000s when their role models were American, they dressed like Nirvana, Eminem the guy in the Levi Advert and Michael Jordan.
I do think the suit trend here is heading more from "lounge suit" to "outdoor shooting party suit/military uniform" now though.
Which yes, actually, may be in response in order to differentiate from the "Trump Style", which I'd call "New York Banker/Mob Style" I assume that's why the patterns and pinstripes are coming back here because the Trump Family don't tend to wear those. There was an article in the newspaper actually about "Trump Style" in both clothes and interior design [The BBC previously have called it "Dictator Style"] About whether it's snobbery we should stop. Because, I don't know why but generally the British attitude was to take one look at Trump decor and go "oh good god no" Like, it's just hideous for inexplicable reasons. But it's snobbery isn't it, and we should really control that more. The article was basically arguing that the Family are the most powerful Family on the planet, and it says something about a moral deficit in ourselves that we look down on them because of their choice of panelling and lighting fixtures. The struggle to take the Trump Family seriously [even when he's now President] is in part because everything about them is lacking in....well.....class. They've always had privileged and wealth, but that never conveys "class" which I can't even define other than I know the Trump Family don't have it. But that's epic levels of snobbery isn't it. Do we not want the Queen to meet Trump because we don't like his ideas politically [on occasion she meets Putin, who's literally blown up British civilians via accidental incompetence and who's planes keep buzzing the RAF simply to annoy them] or is it because we think the Trump Family is simply too uncouth and lacking in good taste. It's probably more the later. And that is not kind and it's prejudice. We should be able to look beyond such things. It's a severe moral deficit that our first instinct is to look down upon them. And it's hubris, in that in reality we simply cannot afford to not ingratiate ourselves to some degree with the new US leader, nobody on the planet can. No matter how much the planet may laugh at them, the are [for now] the new Caesars. This is all a good lesson in why pride is a sin,[clearly Trump is a curse sent by God to plague humanity anyway] and is thus an opportunity for some introspective national character improvement. He might have terrible taste, character and manners, but in such a position of weakness where we'd have to literally beg of favours because we have nothing to offer in return, there's little point maintaining any sort of hubris. I'm not sure if even an attempt at dignity is even possible in these sort of circumstances, he's the most powerful man on the planet.
Just because you have to do business with someone doesn't mean you have to approve of them. You dont have to like your boss at work, you just have to be pleasant. Stupid remains stupid and painting it with gold doesn't make it any different. Sometimes it makes it easier to look at, but not often.
You can Downton Abbey eyebrow at Us in the pubs anytime you want
Yep it's like this. At formal work the men are dressing vaguely Edwardian complete with WW1 style trench coats and beards
The beards are very big, because they're basically all copying Tom Hardy. Whereas more casually in work they're dressing in the style I'm calling "POW: my plane/boat has just been blown up and I haven't slept in three days" chic. Very little shaving is occurring.
The clothes and the beards are probably symptomatic of the entire Global Situation in that it feels like everyone is preparing for a battle. The only real economic problem so far is the weakness of the pound, which because British people do travel a hell of lot is eating into everyone's budgets. Although, I haven't noticed less people travelling to be honest. They're probably just spending less when they're abroad though. Conversely London has been extremely full of tourists - it's been like it was with the Olympics or the Royal Wedding without anything actually happening - because the weakness of the pound means they get more for their money. We'll have to wait until the end of the year but it wouldn't surprise me if we end up being the most visited tourist location this year because it's been noticeably heaving.
The rest of economy for now seems reasonably stable and unemployment has again fallen to put it at the lowest it's been for 42 years. [it's 4.4% for the UK....compared to Greece at 22.5%, Spain 17.8%, Italy 11.1% and France 10%] There's really only Germany who's lower than us at 3.9%. That's going to be very important in the negotiations.
I can't say I've yet seen any impact on our household finances [and I do keep a monthly spreadsheet] in terms of expenditure. I'll take steps as soon as it becomes obvious Brexit is causing cost increases. But as yet I see nothing unexpected. Overseas and Domestic investment at work remains roughly the same. It's entirely possible nothing economically cataclysmic is going to happen until Brexit actually occurs.
There's basically only three things that are going to impact the negotiations by the way. 1. Free trade [which both the UK and the EU want, so this is going to be the main "threat of removal" chip. The UK wants free access to the EU market, and the EU wants free access to the UK market. The only question is what price either side are willing to pay to get it. 2. The rights of the Europeans to move to, and get welfare in the UK. This is a big one for the Europeans. For reasons somewhat explained by this map about the numbers of people currently not in their country of residence.
The UK is basically acting as the over-spill absorber for youth unemployment in Europe. Germany is to some degree as well [but Europeans tend to speak English, not German as a second language] The massive structural economic weaknesses in Greece, Italy and Spain have been mitigated by millions of young people being able to come to the UK to find work. If it turns out they can't do that anymore, either because the UK closes the borders or, worse, because the UK economy collapses due to Brexit and all the foreigners already here return home because there's no money here anymore....you're looking at the potential for there to suddenly be a lot more young people who can't find work. The last thing any of those governments want is a large group of unemployed graduates who can turn political. Up to now they haven't turned political because they've moved to England instead. However, the freedom of movement for the Europeans to continue to be able to come to the UK in large numbers is likely to Chief Demand No.2 of the Europeans due to the very high youth unemployment rate in the EU [even in Finland it's 20% and Sweden 17% France it's 21%, Greece it's 46%, Spain 39%, Italy 38% here it's consistently about 10%....Germany it's around 7%. Those European youngsters need an economically viable English speaking economy to move to to escape the structural eurozone weakness issues. You may have noticed that the present economic arrangement in Europe benefits Germany a great deal, which explains "Chief Demand No.1"...
3. Where is the European Money going to come from. This is where it's coming from now.
You'll note that basically 3 of the EU countries amount to more than the other 25 combined. And unfortunately, one of them is the UK.
The Europeans are unlikely to be willing to potentially see 17.5% of their money disappear. Probably what we're looking at is the notion that the UK will pay what's left of the EU a figure every year to access the Eurozone market. The problem is, in order to fulfil their budgetary problems [which are already significant] the EU is liable to set a figure which the UK is either unwilling or unable to pay. We're talking possibly in the region of $20 billion a year. The Europeans are probably going to assume that they can set such a high figure due to the damage the alternative will bring about [i.e the UK not being able to trade with Europe] However, on balance I'm going to say that the UK probably would be willing to entirely wreak it's own economy rather than set up an arrangement where is owes what's basically punitive punishment money to Europe. They'll pay up anything that could be considered "existing debts" but if they think the Europeans are taking advantage in order to make up gaps in the European budget that's liable to end very badly for all concerned. The problem is that in it's interactions with Greece and Italy the Europeans have shown a willingness to take things "too far" with regards to financial demands so they probably will again.
I'm pretty sure the British won't put themselves under that level of what's basically economic slavery to Europe in order to maintain the economy. They'll just let the UK economy collapse and starve instead. I'm not sure the Europeans have understood that yet. Which is fair enough because it is a stupid and foolish plan, whereas the logical thing is to cough up the money. But I've heard people talk about going back to food rationing if necessary, and they totally would, it's not an empty threat. I mean we'd end up like a failed state and have to grow all our food in-house again...and it's not the most appealing of prospects, but it wouldn't be the first time it's happened, and it'll pass after a couple of decades. The Europeans seem to labouring under a belief that the British are ultimately motivated by Economic Wealth and International Prestige and Status, and can be talked into conversing both....whereas I'm not sure they can exactly. Largely the British assume they don't have either permanently anyway, so they aren't loosing anything no matter what they do. From conversations in the pub I'd say the Europeans are thinking of things in the immediate with 10 year timescales into the future. Whereas the British are thinking about things for the past two millennia and the next millennia into the future. i.e loss of wealth or reputation at some point is inevitable, just as gaining of wealth and reputation is inevitable in the cyclical nature of things.
It goes with the standard "Autumn Work Friday Casual" outfit. Once it gets into Autumn and Winter everyone swaps to much more old fashioned clothes I find, and generally almost everyone wears either grey, black or blue.
I note men's waistcoats appear to be more of a thing this year.
And I haven't shined my shoes since school I'm afraid, there's no point they get muddy in seven nanoseconds.
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btw, have you ever ridden? My mother decided it was vital to my 'uppercrust' training to send me to lessons. Frankly all we did was walk them in circles and towards the end of the year we were allowed to attempt a trot. I found it a silly way to spend time and money as I was not one of those girls who goes crazy over horses.
As i sit here now I realize as part of our timed lesson we groomed, fed, mucked and equiped the horse before riding and reverse at the end. So our parents were paying for us to do the entire stable work for the owners. Nice for them!
Then a mean horse tried to throw me and I was ,"I QUIT." and everyone was "You have to get right back on! It's a famous saying!" "No, I do not. It's a stupid saying. Fool me once is a saying. I'm going with that."
but I prob told this story before
Reply
I have been on horses, cause they were a fairly regular feature at local market town. There's one of the big race tracks there, like in terms of "Ascot" size race track, it's fairly huge. Like, it's so big, over this summer it's been doubling for the 1936 Berlin Olympics Stadiums in some film that's being shot about the Nazis Olympics, which means yes it was covered in Swastika Flags and some of the locals were dressed up in SS Uniforms, but yeah it's pretty large. The Annual Race has been held there since 1776. So yeah there's a lot of horses around, there's a training ground for the foals and a hospital for the sick horses in the next door villages.
I was on Skype with my Dad a few months back and all of a sudden he just up and left, returning five minutes later with a bucket of manure. Because he'd heard the horses go past on the road and he wanted to get the manure "for the roses" before any of the neighbours got there first. He keeps a shovel and bucket by the back door.
...although I am wary of horses, which is why I can't ride. I think it started in the woods we used to play in which has the horse graveyard....yeah it's possibly that. Plus the horses tend to graze on public land, which means when you're walking places they on mass as a group want to come and mug you for food. I'm still worried about walking past them, but as a small child I'd take different paths to not go where they were. They see you entering the path and a group of six of them would just canter up to you and you could never tell if they were going to stop or not. It's worse down in the more rural areas down south where some of my relatives live, I once remember waking up in one of the cottage bedrooms cause I could hear the horseshoes on the cobbles and there was a horse outside the open window next to my head. They're basically stupid massive animals that can squish you and kick you and trample you. I'm fine with them as long as they stay at least forty feet away from me.
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The men here who are apt to wear waistcoats with suits are also apt to wear pocket squares. Possibly a fob and chain. I like the playful dressers.
Waistcoats as a trend? I kinda hope we get it. Is this an anti-frumpy Pres thing? Can I say it is?
How is brexit going?
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But i have seen a certain shift, now that you mention. The wild beards are getting tamed. Women's hair is going back up into cleaner styles. Maybe suits are back? suppose it is rump and his ties pushing it along?
conservatives?
shapes. edit to say that women's hair trend i see right now is putting it up into shapes. like a fan or double bubble or like that
Reply
The Economic and Political Change in the last decade probably shifted us to more conservative clothing choices also in part because there's less shopping in the United States occurring. Also, since The Tenth Doctor, wearing suits, tie and converses became universal amongst men under 30. He probably did actually genuinely lead to an fashion uptick in suit wearing. For people brought up on Harry Potter and The Tenth Doctor, ties, blazers and suits are actually what their icons wear on a day to day basis. Sherlock led to a noticeable rise in swishy coats and scarves. Bond coming back then led to the men over 30 wearing the suits and tuxes as well. It'll be a combination of all these things.
Back in the 90s and early 2000s when their role models were American, they dressed like Nirvana, Eminem the guy in the Levi Advert and Michael Jordan.
I do think the suit trend here is heading more from "lounge suit" to "outdoor shooting party suit/military uniform" now though.
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Stupid remains stupid and painting it with gold doesn't make it any different. Sometimes it makes it easier to look at, but not often.
You can Downton Abbey eyebrow at Us in the pubs anytime you want
Reply
The beards are very big, because they're basically all copying Tom Hardy. Whereas more casually in work they're dressing in the style I'm calling "POW: my plane/boat has just been blown up and I haven't slept in three days" chic. Very little shaving is occurring.
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The rest of economy for now seems reasonably stable and unemployment has again fallen to put it at the lowest it's been for 42 years. [it's 4.4% for the UK....compared to Greece at 22.5%, Spain 17.8%, Italy 11.1% and France 10%] There's really only Germany who's lower than us at 3.9%. That's going to be very important in the negotiations.
I can't say I've yet seen any impact on our household finances [and I do keep a monthly spreadsheet] in terms of expenditure. I'll take steps as soon as it becomes obvious Brexit is causing cost increases. But as yet I see nothing unexpected. Overseas and Domestic investment at work remains roughly the same. It's entirely possible nothing economically cataclysmic is going to happen until Brexit actually occurs.
Reply
1. Free trade [which both the UK and the EU want, so this is going to be the main "threat of removal" chip. The UK wants free access to the EU market, and the EU wants free access to the UK market. The only question is what price either side are willing to pay to get it.
2. The rights of the Europeans to move to, and get welfare in the UK. This is a big one for the Europeans. For reasons somewhat explained by this map about the numbers of people currently not in their country of residence.
The UK is basically acting as the over-spill absorber for youth unemployment in Europe. Germany is to some degree as well [but Europeans tend to speak English, not German as a second language] The massive structural economic weaknesses in Greece, Italy and Spain have been mitigated by millions of young people being able to come to the UK to find work. If it turns out they can't do that anymore, either because the UK closes the borders or, worse, because the UK economy collapses due to Brexit and all the foreigners already here return home because there's no money here anymore....you're looking at the potential for there to suddenly be a lot more young people who can't find work. The last thing any of those governments want is a large group of unemployed graduates who can turn political. Up to now they haven't turned political because they've moved to England instead. However, the freedom of movement for the Europeans to continue to be able to come to the UK in large numbers is likely to Chief Demand No.2 of the Europeans due to the very high youth unemployment rate in the EU [even in Finland it's 20% and Sweden 17% France it's 21%, Greece it's 46%, Spain 39%, Italy 38% here it's consistently about 10%....Germany it's around 7%. Those European youngsters need an economically viable English speaking economy to move to to escape the structural eurozone weakness issues. You may have noticed that the present economic arrangement in Europe benefits Germany a great deal, which explains "Chief Demand No.1"...
Reply
You'll note that basically 3 of the EU countries amount to more than the other 25 combined. And unfortunately, one of them is the UK.
The Europeans are unlikely to be willing to potentially see 17.5% of their money disappear. Probably what we're looking at is the notion that the UK will pay what's left of the EU a figure every year to access the Eurozone market. The problem is, in order to fulfil their budgetary problems [which are already significant] the EU is liable to set a figure which the UK is either unwilling or unable to pay. We're talking possibly in the region of $20 billion a year. The Europeans are probably going to assume that they can set such a high figure due to the damage the alternative will bring about [i.e the UK not being able to trade with Europe] However, on balance I'm going to say that the UK probably would be willing to entirely wreak it's own economy rather than set up an arrangement where is owes what's basically punitive punishment money to Europe. They'll pay up anything that could be considered "existing debts" but if they think the Europeans are taking advantage in order to make up gaps in the European budget that's liable to end very badly for all concerned. The problem is that in it's interactions with Greece and Italy the Europeans have shown a willingness to take things "too far" with regards to financial demands so they probably will again.
I'm pretty sure the British won't put themselves under that level of what's basically economic slavery to Europe in order to maintain the economy. They'll just let the UK economy collapse and starve instead. I'm not sure the Europeans have understood that yet. Which is fair enough because it is a stupid and foolish plan, whereas the logical thing is to cough up the money. But I've heard people talk about going back to food rationing if necessary, and they totally would, it's not an empty threat. I mean we'd end up like a failed state and have to grow all our food in-house again...and it's not the most appealing of prospects, but it wouldn't be the first time it's happened, and it'll pass after a couple of decades. The Europeans seem to labouring under a belief that the British are ultimately motivated by Economic Wealth and International Prestige and Status, and can be talked into conversing both....whereas I'm not sure they can exactly. Largely the British assume they don't have either permanently anyway, so they aren't loosing anything no matter what they do. From conversations in the pub I'd say the Europeans are thinking of things in the immediate with 10 year timescales into the future. Whereas the British are thinking about things for the past two millennia and the next millennia into the future. i.e loss of wealth or reputation at some point is inevitable, just as gaining of wealth and reputation is inevitable in the cyclical nature of things.
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