Beautiful house/dental practice in Japan

From the Dezeen website comes this beautiful Japanese house, which houses both the owner’s dental practice and a swimming pool. I bet he doesn’t find it hard to attract the ladies with this gaff. Superb.













Tip: Spaceinvading

Rafa: the man they love to hate



Let’s get this straight: Rafa Benitez makes some seemingly odd decisions.

Last year he took off Steven Gerrard at Wigan in a game Liverpool had to win to maintain their title challenge. This season, he’s substituted our best player, Yossi Benayoun, in matches against Lyon and Fulham, just when we needed him most. He’s stubborn, thinks too much about the next game and once wore a dreadful stonewash jeans-and-suit jacket combination at Wrexham in a friendly last year.

He’s also one of the greatest managers in the world.

People – and I include a lot of Liverpool fans in this – are so used to the Reds being a dominant force that they ignore the perilous position that the club is in at the moment. For anyone under the age of 45, Liverpool have always been at the top of the English football tree. If they’re not, it must be Rafa’s fault. Right?

Wrong.

If we’re being truthful here, Benitez must take some blame for what’s been happening on the pitch recently, but the real reason we’re in such a bad position at the moment is down to two people: Liverpool’s owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks. Though to call them “owners” grants them more dignity than they deserve.

When they bought our club off long-time chairman David Moores, Hicks and Gilette promised that they would use their own money for the purchase.

They lied.

Instead they took control of Liverpool FC with a £350m Royal Bank of Scotland loan. The profits the club makes, thanks largely to Benitez’s careful management, are ploughed back to pay off the interest on that loan. Want new players, Rafa? Sorry, you can only spend what you earn through the sales of others.

And it’s not just in the purchase of players that the Americans have been sadly wanting.

Three years ago, all the talk was of “new Anfield”, the 70,000-capacity stadium that would see Liverpool bring in the sort of gate receipts that Manchester United and Arsenal do every week. George Gillett promised that within 60 days of them taking over, there’d be “a spade in the ground” at Stanley Park, site of the new ground.

We’re still waiting.

The truth of the matter is that Liverpool are skint. Without Torres and Gerrard, Liverpool have no-one, bar Benayoun who can put the ball in the net with any regularity. The fact that Liverpool couldn’t afford to get rid of someone as woefully inept as Andriy Voronin during the summer shows just how paper-thin our squad is.

And it’s not just me pointing this out. Daniel Finkelstein’s “Finktank” in The Times forensically analyses the form of every Premier League club. His view on Liverpool is eye-opening.

[Last year] Liverpool exceeded our expectations for a team of their quality. And it is not surprising at all that they have dropped back off again this season. Their start to this season is more what we would expect of them.

So what is behind it? Three things seem worth mentioning. First, they have stayed steady in quality but have changed with their defence getting weaker and their attack getting stronger. They are letting in a large proportion of the shots on goal. They need to put this right.

Second, Xabi Alonso was, next only to Steven Gerrard, their best player. It was a disaster to lose him to Real Madrid. But most importantly – the money. Our figures show that Benítez outperforms the wage bill. Blame the Americans. Not Rafa.

So for Liverpool supporters, it has to be a case of holding tight and sitting out this storm. Calling for Benitez’s head does no-one any favours – and there isn’t a decent manager out there who’d come to Liverpool at the moment anyway, not with those two clowns at the helm. As mentioned earlier, the Spaniard should not be immune to criticism, but a real examination of what Rafa can do for the club should wait until Hicks and Gillett have been packed off back to the States.

And Reds fans reading this: remember, we are not Newcastle or England, clamouring for our manager’s head just because it’s not going exactly the way we like it. We are different. We support our team, and especially our manager, through thick and thin.

As our motto goes: we are not English, we are Scouse.

It’s about time a few more people started to behave like it.

On heroes…



I’d never really idolised anyone before Ray Clemence.

I was seven. Mad on football, mad on Liverpool FC and absolutely obsessed with goalkeeping. My fixation on Ray Clemence was thus assured.

Clemence was the lynchpin of the Liverpool side of the ’70s. Signed in 1967 from Scunthorpe United, he replaced Tommy Lawerence – the ‘flying pig’ – in the Reds’ nets three years later in 1970.

Clem was the polar opposite of the average, ultra-dependable goalie of the period. While the likes of his England rival Peter Shilton had honed their skills for years to become capable between the sticks (Shilton used to get his parents to stretch him off the landing to make him taller), Clemence was originally an outfield player, only becoming a goalie to get a game in a school representative side. For Clemence, being in goal was easy – or at least that’s how he made it look.

As I began playing competitively myself, it was Ray who was my inspiration (though I would never master kicking with my left foot as he did). I may have only been playing in the Ormskirk and District Cubs League, but every game gave me the chance to tip the ball round the post a la Clemence or keep a clean sheet like Ray did at Anfield, just a few miles from my house. And when things went wrong for Clem, they went wrong for me too. I couldn’t stand it when he’d make a mistake, and was distraught when his louche style led to a soft goal going in. Even though Clemence had the superior natural attributes, I always had the nagging feeling that Shilton was the better of the two England goalies, but only admitting this to myself, never at school, where the assembled throngs of Evertonians would be gleeful when he messed up. Thirty years on, I still find the soft through-the-legs goal he let in for England against Scotland in 1976 painful. He really was my hero.

And then one day I heard that he would be doing a signing at a sports shop in Ormskirk. I don’t think I’ve ever been as excited about anything in my life. After school I went to the store, to be greeted by a huge queue snaking down the road. I took my place, petrified that the doors would shut and I’d miss out, but within half an hour I was inside, just a few yeards from the great man. I’d gone through this meeting in my head all afternoon. I would be polite. I would ask him about playing in Liverpool, he would quiz me about my sparkling form for the 37th Ormskirk Cubs and perhaps point me in the way of a trial at Anfield. Then came my turn. I walked up and began to speak, but Clem, wearing a dark blue V-neck jumper, just took my autograph book off me and signed his name without even looking up. I was moved on and out of the shop, another expendable part in the faceless production line of fame. Gutted.

My feelings for Ray Clemence were never the same after this. It was a wake up call, one that we all get eventually, that our heroes are every bit as mortal and prone to faults as the rest of us. Following Ray, came Adam Ant, after Adam, John Barnes, but each time the gap between the man and his actions got wider as I learnt that being good at something didn’t automatically make you a good person. And that goes for all of us.

There is a coda to this little story though. Last year, while entering my private London media club, I happened upon a middle aged man trying to get in. The lady with the clipboard, under strict instruction not to admit anyone but members and their guests, told him that he’d have to wait as his member friend wasn’t here yet. He turned around. It was Ray Clemence.

“It’s alright, Clem,“ I said, “if you’re stuck getting in, I’ll sort you out.”
“Cheers, mate,” he replied, hearing my accent, pleased that the Liverpool connection still bore fruit in the most unexpected of places.

And it’s funny, because even though I was tempted to tell him how shit he’d he made me feel 30 years ago, the fact that he was the first person I ever truly idolised counted for so much more than this – ultimately minor – disappointment. I might now have been a man in my 30s, but meeting him once again laid that ghost to rest. He was mortal alright, but he was still Liverpool goalkeeper when they were the greatest football team on the planet. And that counted for more than anything.

I just wish I’d asked him to sign my serviette – I lost the orginal autograph years before.

Marble sculptures that don’t look as if they’re made from marble

Courtesy of the brilliant arts blog TodayandTomorrow comes the work of Fabio Viale. I’m especially impressed by his sculpture of the Mona Lisa, which looks like it’s been made out of polystyrene balls, though the tyres and marble boat he’s made aren’t bad either. Very talented.

The Amalfi coast – ’70s-style pics

More from my pretentious, trendy Islington honeymoon. This time it’s the craggy coast of the Amalfi peninsula.

Rome in late September



Just got back from my honeymoon in Italy, travelling down the boot from Florence, through to Rome and on to the Amalfi coast. These pics are from my time in the Eternal City. More to come.

Old peculiars: how British men’s brands are harking back to the days of Empire



Originally in FHM

Britain is back in fashion.

But the country that provides the inspiration for the best of the new season’s menswear is not one of comedy-postcard punks, Union Jack electric guitars and Austin Powers faux-‘grooviness’. No, the Britain – and British-ness – that permeates the clothes you’ll want to wear this winter predates the swinging ’60s by a good 30 years or more. A time when the sun never set on the Empire and thoroughly decent chaps with names like Sandy and Roger would navigate the Zambezi river in the morning before ascending Kilimanjaro after afternoon tea – usually armed only with a penknife and a pouch of Golden Virginia.

The clothes these men wore – and by God they were men – were built to protect them on these adventures. Overcoats made from rubberised cotton, lightweight jackets with countless hidden pockets and hunting outfits slathered in waterproof wax all kept the chaps safe as they headed into confront Johnny Foreigner and his ghastly ecosystem.

Today, while the Empire is limited to the Isle of Man and some helpfully mineral-rich outposts of the south Atlantic, homegrown designers are harking back to this golden age of British manhood. From Dunhill to Nigel Cabourn and Oliver Spencer, coats, jackets, luggage and footwear are all imbibed with the Boy’s Own spirit. Even on the high street the look is gaining ground, with Marks & Spencer doing what it does best and producing classic British staples, while Topshop is aiming for the more discerning customer with its new range of grown-up classics. That’s not to say these clothes are stuffy though: seemingly every collection drips, not just with tradition, but also 21st Century cuts and tweaks designed to flatter the wearer. Here there is no compromise between style and practicality.

At Dunhill, a brand forever associated with the pleasures of both the road and the smoking room, designer Kim Jones has been drafted in to create a series of clothes that fuse the label’s august traditions with the silhouettes of now.

“There’s a storm system coat in the new collection,” he says, “which looks distinctly modern but is actually lifted from the company archives. Look hard and you’ll also see echoes of a butcher’s jacket, a sailor’s jacket, things made for a reason. Each and every piece has a story and a purpose.”

Dunhill isn’t the only brand to get in an innovative designer to accentuate its heritage. At Barbour, a company whose waxed jackets are a staple in many a man’s wardrobe, Japanese designer To Ki To has created a range of coats expertly engineered to bear the brunt of whatever the weather can throw at the wearer. His slim-line horse-riding coat, with its waxed cotton shell, tartan interior and range of pockets is ideal for braving a winter weekend in the country, while the ‘Rustic’ driving jacket boasts a brilliantly designed hood and button-up front sure to frighten off the most unfriendly of elements – and traffic cops.



The apex of this spirit can be found in the works of veteran designer Nigel Cabourn. His new collection, which features robust tweed jackets and a stunning parka with its own inbuilt rucksack, is inspired by the clothing that mountaineers Mallory and Irvine wore on their doomed expedition to Everest in 1924. Like Stone Island founder Massimo Osti, Cabourn has a vast collection of vintage military and industrial clothing that he draws upon for inspiration.

“The clothes I make are always inspired by real people or events – they always have a heritage,” he explains. “I use real fabrics from the past and even real zips – and it’s expensive. But if you cut these clothes in a contemporary way men love it.”

These clothes are far more than mere fashion items. They are not garments to be slung out when style editors declare that the colour is no longer in vogue or the cut is not right for whatever season we’re in. The coats, trousers and jumpers here are meant to be treasured and brought out when the occasion demands, year on year. London designer Oliver Spencer, whose new season collection is an exercise in restrained British menswear, sums this philosophy up.

“It’s about making utilitarian luxury. The buyer of our clothes is a ‘new casual’ who appreciates the finest details. He wants clothes that are made with the purest of fabrics. And importantly, he wants them to be made in Britain.”

Just, it seems, like the men who wear it. Now, where’s that canoe…

In defence of Mick Hucknall



I’m going to say something that would see me cast out of every post-work media boozer in London. That would get me laughed at by people whose sole existence seems to consist of looking at Chuck Norris videos on YouTube and saying ‘amazing’ a lot.

I quite like Mick Hucknall.

In fact, the more I see of him, the more I like him. Granted, Simply Red’s earlier output is worthy of praise anyway (and yes, it is), but it’s what Hucknall stands for that endears him to me.

Specifically, it’s an appearance he made in a Piers Morgan programme about the lizard-like rich folk of Monte Carlo last year. With his reputation for good living and, let’s face it, boss shagging, you might expect Mick to spend his days in a Monte Carlo mansion, enjoying the benefits of tax-free living and wearing sunglasses in dimly lit restaurants. But you’d be wrong, because, as he proudly admitted on the show, he is a UK taxpayer. No dodgy offshore accounts, no snidey 70 days at home to escape the Revenue – just a very rich man putting 40 per cent of what he earns back into the pot.

It doesn’t sound much, but when mingebag celebrities take pride in fucking out of the gaff the moment they get upgraded to a ‘gold’ account at the Halifax, then it’s refreshing to find someone who’s willing to take a hit so your nan can have a hip replacement on the NHS. OK, he might come across as a bit of wanker, but if me or any of my mates were famous, the News of the World would have my neighbours torching my house over one of my post-fifth pint gags.

Hucknall is a real Labour man, a working class feller who’s done well in music, but hasn’t gone down the route of adopting one of those weird mid-Atlantic Lancastrian accents so beloved of the middle-aged northern rock star/DJ and moving to the Isle of Man. He didn’t disown Labour or Blair the moment the gastropub mafia got sick of the party, he stuck with them, because he knows that those with less will always do be better off under a Labour government. Even one that’s led by Gordon Brown.

The tiresome anti-northern, anti-ginger prejudice he faces is just another example of those with talent for fuck all, except smirking and pontificating about ’80s youth movements they were never cool enough to be a part of, having too much of a platform in the media. Not that Mick Hucknall cares, he’s waking up in a nice house somewhere with a gorgeous wife and a beautiful young daughter to bring up.

And without a Chuck Norris video in sight.

Ballpoint drawings of the Soviet/Afghan war



The work of a Russian soldier who fought in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union’s ill-fated invasion of the that country in 1979, these pictures were drawn using only a ballpoint pen. According to English Russia, the soldier not only lost comrades in Afghanistan, but in Tajikistan and Chechnya too. His pictures were his way of coping with what he endured on the battlefields of the most remote parts of Asia.

Quadrant Park and the madness of 1990



Liverpool didn’t embrace acid house early on like Manchester did. House was dismissed as a fad in 1987 and the acid variety of a year later was seen viewed with suspicion by most Scousers. In Liverpool, apart from the odd club like the Mardi Gras and the Underground, house was strictly for Mancs and Cockneys. Who needed to jack their body when you could mong out to Floyd on your sofa?

Then Quadrant Park happened.

Located in Bootle, the Quad looked like a shoe warehouse from the outside and a Magaluf fun pub from the in. Four or five miles from the city centre, it was the sort of place that drew in its custom by sending out mass 18th birthday party invites with pictures of champagne bottles on the front. I once went to one such do there, where I was pursued by girl with bright red hair and a mad hat. It being pre-acid house, she'd been attracted by my Rick Astley-influenced outfit of spotted tie, blazer and chinos.



Then in 1990, rumours surfaced about the new nights at Quadrant Park, that this most townie of Merseyside nightclubs had betrayed its ‘cop off and get smacked’ traditions by ‘going house’. I went back on a Monday night to see LFO and sure enough, house it most certainly had gone, as you could tell by the fact the owners were selling Lucozade behind the bar for rather more than it cost in the shops. They even shut off the cold water in the toilets to give it that authentic acid vibe, the scamps.



Despite the fact that LFO didn’t show on that night, the place was properly mental. The music was a mix of British ‘bleep’ techno and Italian piano tracks, danced to by frighteningly skinny local scals and out-of-towners, some of whom wore kaftans just to prove they’d been to the acid house Harrod’s, Affleck’s Palace. Drug-takers or not, we were all swept up in its euphoric Scouse house wave.

As the club became bigger and bigger, the profits that could be had brought in the gangsters, and ultimately, the people who’d made the Quad what it was went somewhere else, specifically the new night that was starting on Slater Street near the legendary Conti club. Nice people, Balearic vibe, no wonder they called it Cream. Liverpool had got acid house at last.

Have Adidas got no shame?



Adi, if you’re up there, please avert your eyes. A pair of trainers have been made in your name with three tongues. God forgive them.

Mexican Coke tastes better than normal Coke. Apparently



Top preppy/general good clobber site A Continuous Lean has a great article on the superior taste of Mexican Coca-Cola compared to the normal stuff which they get in the States. I’ll be truthful here, there are few better things in life than cold Coke drunk from the traditional glass bottle – especially if it’s one that’s been stolen from the local Spa. Having said that, when you’ve had to put up with cheapo Panda ‘cola’ for much of your life – as we British kids did in the recession of the 1980s – anything tastes good. Anyway, ACL say:

It all started in 1985 when — in an effort to save money — Coca-Cola stopped using real cane sugar and reformulated the iconic drink to be made with high-fructose corn syrup. The U.S. government subsidizes corn growers so much (some $40 billion since the mid 90s) that HFCS is cheaper than sugar, and when you are producing on the scale that Coke is material costs are crucial to the bottom line. What does this have to do with Mexican Coke you ask? Well, the bottlers south of the border never made the switch to HFCS, so people (like myself) feel that Mexican Coke has a better taste than American Coke. I think the Coca-Cola made with real sugar is less sweet tasting and has a smoother finish than HFCS Coke and thus is superior.

The Housemartins: the group who invented the ’90s



It’s 23 years since the Housemartins first released their album, London 0 Hull 4. And to celebrate this, er, pivotal anniversary, the record has been re-released complete with bonus thingies and unreleased whatsits. This is a good thing.

As a record it’s faultless, a landmark example of the enduring power of post-war British pop music. I’ve never particularly attached a great deal of importance to lyrics, but on London 0 Hull 4, PD (later Paul) Heaton’s descriptions of a north of England ravaged by Thatcherism made me both sad and proud at the same time. The fact that they were carried by the most infectious of pop melodies just made these songs even better. But that wasn’t all.



When you took the record out and looked at the inner sleeve of the record you were greeted with a picture of the band. And in that shot Heaton was wearing a round neck jumper, small-collared shirt and a tiny, discreet football badge on his breast. These details said one thing: Heaton was one of us.

I’d spent the most of the mid-’80s ignoring pop music. And no wonder. Because, from 1984-1986, apart from a few notable exceptions, most of the stuff I heard was pompous, tuneless, overblown rubbish – the soundtrack of me trying to avoid getting my head kicked in at under-18s discos. It was Queen at Live Aid, Duran Duran ditching the funk of their first two albums for big hair and overblown rock, and Go West and Jennifer Rush polluting the charts. I missed out on the genius of The Smiths because they looked like students and the only bit of moving I did to music was my distinctly average breakdancing moves in an upstairs room at the local baths. No wonder that my heroes were Liverpool FC players and the fashion-obsessed scallies who watched them from the Anfield Road End.



This is why The Housemartins were such a breath of fresh (River Humber) air. The clothes they wore and the subjects they sang about marked them out as people my mates and I could identify. When The South Bank Show did a documentary on the band I loved the fact that Heaton wore an à-la-mode Dundee FC ‘tea cosy’ hat when singing Think For a Minute on a boat in the Humber (Bassist Norman Cook’s Adidas windcheater and guitarist Stan Cullimore’s Patrick cagoule are also worthy of note).

The Housemartins sowed the seeds of what, sadly, would eventually become known as ‘laddism’. They showed that you could be into football and politics, that you could obsess about clothes but never go to a Paris catwalk show, and that the things that defined our everyday existence were subjects worthy of documentation. At that time, John Peel was roundly booed by left wing audiences for having the temerity to read out the football results at assorted rock festivals. That wouldn’t happen today (and not because Peel passed away a few years back).



After two albums, the group split, with Heaton going on to form the all-conquering Beautiful South. Musically, to me at least, they were hit and miss, but their songs carried on in the Housemartins tradition of detailing the absurdities of normal life – and Heaton’s hair in the video for Song for Whoever is the best example of a late-’80s long-on-top bob I’ve ever seen. He also wore CP Company and Stone Island long before they became a staple for football hooligans from the Potteries and Yorkshire.

After the demise of The Housemartins came acid house and the creative explosion in music and media that followed, led by many more young men – DJs, musicians, journalists – who shared the same background as Hull’s finest. But by the mid-’90s, this invasion of society’s cooler echelons had been taken over by those whose credentials didn’t bear up to close scrutiny, but whose long-standing links in the ‘creative industries’ ensured their success. Suddenly, everyone from Radio 1 DJs to Harry Enfield was a ‘lad’.

So Heaton withdrew into the comfort of his limited edition Mille Miglia coats and the warmth of his local. Lad he may once been, but once it became just another lazy media term, he did what we all have to – and grew up.

Buying trainers: a guide for the older man



A re-edited version of this appeared in The Economist’s Intelligent Life magazine.

In general, a man doesn’t give much thought to his trainers. He may well have a pair tucked away in the wardrobe, waiting for when he needs to walk the dog or go out for a quick drink. But that’s where the relationship ends: he thinks of them—if he ever does think of them—as throw-them-on shoes, shoes that don’t matter. This is a pity. The right pair of classic trainers can be as versatile as a pair of made-to-measure oxfords from Lobb.

By “classic” trainer, I don’t mean the modern, hyper-size sports shoe, with their various air pumps, cushioned soles and space-age lacing systems. These are too big, too clever-clever and too noticeable to be much use. For trainers that bring out the best in clothes—or at least the clothes that a grown man might want to wear—you need the simpler styles: how trainers looked before trainers got silly. Often constructed of fine leather in dark or understated colours, and with a lack of any obvious markings or branding, a classic trainer will be reminiscent in shape of the pumps of the 1960s and 1970s You could play a spot of a five-a-side in a pair, if you had to, but they’re smart, too—as smart as trainers can get without actually becoming shoes. Coupled with a pair of slimmer-fit, indigo jeans, a good jacket and a well-fitting shirt, they’ll see you right for all but the most formal of occasions.

There’s no shortage of places to shop for this type of shoe—the big sportswear brands such as Adidas, Nike, Puma, Lacoste and Reebok are sold globally. But you’ll want to pass on these brands’ showiest models and instead search out their retrospective ranges. Adidas’s Originals line (www.adidas.com/originals), in particular, is a cornucopia of classic shoes from the company’s back-catalogue. Models such as the Stan Smith, Forest Hills, Universal and Stockholm are constructed mainly from leather or coloured suede, and have a timeless shape that will work with most casual trousers, especially a pair of relaxed-fit jeans or dark cords—perfect for Saturday-afternoon outings or leisurely evenings in the pub. But be wary of the much-hyped, money-spinning collaborations between the big sportswear labels and established designers, such as that between Alexander McQueen and Puma. Aside from Adidas’s work with Porsche Design, they’re all a more ponderous, overstated and more expensive version of the real thing. It’s like someone buying a chic modernist house, and the adding a Tudorbethan roof to it. Then charging you twice as much for the privilege.

Perhaps surprisingly, higher price is not necessarily a guarantee of a better shoe. Many designer fashion labels have spin-off sportswear lines, punting out tracksuits and shoes plastered with visible logos. But when I was doing the research for this piece, I found a pair of plain black Comme des Garçons pumps, at Dover Street Market in central London, that were indistinguishable from the ones worn by six-year-olds in school gymnasiums up and down the country to do their forward rolls in. The price to you? £155. Admittedly Prada does a few perfectly crafted black leather trainers—but even then, it adds garish red logos running up the tongues of some styles, which spoils the whole thing. At the other end of the market—and usually that’s where they’re found—you should avoid the temptation to save a few quid by buying a pair of imitation pumps. They may look like that pair of Adidas you saw last week, but the four stripes, cardboard sole and unpleasant smell of substandard glue will soon illustrate the folly of your purchase. Plus, if you wear them out with your children they’ll never speak to you again.

For people with concern for those who actually make these items, the likes of Adidas and Nike haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory. Both brands use giant factories in south east Asia and South America as a way of cutting costs and sadly, their record in labour relations has been poor. For example, in 2005, 33 Adidas employees in Indonesia were sacked for taking part in a legal strike over pay – workers had been paid as little as 60 cents an hour. It was only a concerted campaign by Oxfam that finally got them a severance deal two years later. More hopefully, Nike, for years a target of anti-poverty campaigners, has made a concerted effort to distance itself from these sort of practices. In 2005, it published a dossier which contained details of abuses at its factories in Asia and joined the Fair Labour Association – both of which were seen as positive moves forward by human rights groups. Neither firm, however, can compete on these issues with Brazilian/French trainer brand, Veja (www.veja.fr), which not only makes strikingly retro sports shoes in organic cotton and wild rubber, but also ensures workers are rewarded for their toils by running the business on a co-operative model.

Another danger comes in the form of the horrendous casual shoe/trainer hybrids that have surfaced in the past few years. Often constructed in pre-distressed leather and covered in all sorts of unsightly details—oddly angled Velcro fastenings are popular—they’re usually worn by men with intricate mullet haircuts, purposely bashed-about jeans and nasty suit jackets. These are not for you. Instead, stay svelte and explore the ranges by the Majorcan cobblers Camper, the Italian high-end sportswear specialist C.P. Company—or amiable but intermittently stuffy English shoemakers Clarks. If it’s lo-tech, classic simplicity you’re after, Converse’s Chuck Taylor and Jack Purcell basketball boots will look super-fresh with a pair of 1950s-style, baggy, turned-up jeans, while Superga’s cotton Cotu plimsoll has been complementing Italian men’s fitted summer shorts since 1925. You could also try some of the classy European styles produced by the Swedish brand Tretorn and France’s Spring Court (the latter as worn by John Lennon on the front of Abbey Road).

Of course, one of the problems about buying trainers is the actual shopping experience. Like record shops and hi-fi stores, trainer emporiums can be horribly intimidating places. Specialised men’s boutiques such as Oi Polloi in Manchester, or Liverpool’s Transalpino, can be easier on the male ego, with assistants who’ll happily take you through their tailor-made choice of retro-looking trainers and reissues without making you feel like an unwanted guest. These shops also boast fantastic, easy-to-use websites if you can’t make it in the flesh. At the top end, London’s Lanvin menswear store in Savile Row is a joy to a shop at, while around the corner, in Brook Street the ultra-friendly boutique Browns has just opened a dedicated shoe store; in Paris, the Bonne Marché branch in St Germain is particularly welcoming and well-stocked. And if you have to go high-street, the UK-wide chain Size (size.co.uk), boasts an unrivalled selection of reissues, while Office carries plenty of the bigger sports brands. Be warned, however: some members of staff wear baseball caps turned to the side—unironically.

When you put on a pair of trainers on it’s wise to bear a couple of things in mind. Firstly, the laces: many an outfit has been ruined by huge bows flapping off the feet of an otherwise carefully dressed man. Either cut the laces shorter, or tie them behind the tongue: that way you’ll get a nice, clean silhouette and be less likely to fall over when running for that early morning flight. Think about what you’re wearing them with, too. The sleeker the trainer, the narrower your trousers should be. You’ll often see smart footwear swamped by cheap, baggy jeans, lost under a blanket of shredded denim—keep your jeans resting on top of your footwear. After all, what’s the point in shelling out on quality sports shoes if no one can see them?

If you find you’re getting stuck about what trainers to plump for, use the same rules for buying other clothes. Think about what other items you’ve got, the sort of places you’ll be going and what suits you. Don’t be too clever or ambitious. This is not about fashion or taking risks, it is about style—and that, as we know, is timeless. Happy hunting.

Harry Patch: 1898-2009



He was the last surviving soldier of World War I, but on Saturday, at the age of 111, Harry Patch died, thus severing the last living link with the 1914-18 conflict. Oddly, the week before, the war’s other survivor, 113-year-old Henry Allingham, also passed away, meaning that this November, for the first time, there will be none of the ‘fighting Tommies’ present at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. The photo, by Don McCullin comes courtesy of this profile of Patch in The Observer.

The least free places on Earth


Great feature from ForeignPolicy.com, which, from what I can gather is a “think tank“ – whatever a think tank actually is. Anyway, it’ll come as no surprise that North Korea tops the list. FP says:

All power is held by Kim Jong Il, who assumed power in 1994 upon the death of his father, North Korea’s founding leader Kim Il Sung. The regime maintains a network of prison camps in which thousands of political prisoners are subjected to brutal conditions. All facets of a person's life – including employment, education, place of residence, access to medical facilities, and access to stores – are determined by a semihereditary system of social discrimination that classifies citizens into 53 subgroups under broad security ratings (from “core” to “wavering” to “hostile”) based on their family‘s perceived loyalty to the regime.

But worse news for the middle class students who are always asking me to sign their petitions on Upper Street is the inclusion of Cuba. That’s right, funky, salsa-dancing, Bueno Vista Social Club-listening, George W. Bush-hating Cuba. Are they serious? Apparently so:

Fidel Castro may have stepped down last year after 49 years in power, but Cuba remains a one-party state, now under Fidel’s brother, Raúl. Freedom of movement and the right to choose one’s residence and place of employment are severely restricted, and attempting to leave the island without permission is a punishable offense. Owning a cellphone and accessing the internet from home were finally legalized in 2008, but the costs of both are far outside the reach of most Cubans.

Surely, there must be some mistake. Don’t FP realise that there are thousands of young British SWP-ers who own Palestinian keffiyehs and everything who would give their parents’ second home in the Dordogne just for a two-week working holiday on a collective farm in some faraway corner of this socialist paradise? Can they not see that “freedom” is a small price to pay for the chance to watch an 80-year-old fella in a white cap* sing a song about shagging a farm girl in 1933? Some people will never learn.

* Have you noticed that old people with brown skin are considered cool, whereas your average blue-rinse British OAP is someone who holds embarrassingly patriotic views and doesn’t own any Bob Marley records?

More here
Tip: Harry’s Place

Tilt-shift pictures of London… and an amazing video of Swiss railways



I’m a bit obsessed with tilt-shift photography at the moment, the technique that makes everything you take a picture of look like it’s a little toy model.

I’m not quite sure how one would go about making these images – though I note the latest issue of Smug Mac User Weekly tells you how in Google’s Picasa program – but the results make even the most earth-shattering moments look tiny and insignificant.









The pictures of London here come courtesy of Toby Allen and the Daily Telegraph. But it seems that the tilt-shift craze has now gone over to video…

gottardo nord from fb1 visuals on Vimeo.

The film is taken from this Vimeo link at geeksaresexy.net, which says it‘s…

… an absolutely stunning tilt-shift video of various trains passing through the Swiss villages of Sisikon and Göschenen. This project was filmed by Andi Leemann and Jeri Peier using two EOS 5D Mark II cameras, a Canon 90mm TS-E f/2.8 and a Canon TS-E 24mm f/3.5 combined with a 1.4x converter.

Brilliant stuff.

Bullrings of the world



Whether you think bullfighting is cruel or [adopts pretentious voice] a beguiling part of Hispanic cutlure (it’s probably both), the fact remains that the stadiums in which this ritual takes place are some of the most beautiful sporting arenas in the world. From this thread on Skyscraper City comes a selection of the world’s greatest plazas de toros.



Ciudad Real, Spain (the oldest in the world, dating from 1641)



Ronda, Spain




Murcia, Spain



Albufeira, Portugal



Madrid, Spain



Nimes, France



Barcelona, Spain



Almeria, Spain



Villaluenga del Rosario, Cádiz, Spain

Photo at top: Santa Eulalia, Portugal

Andy Murray v Stanislas Wawrinka

Obviously having absolutely no connections with the blazers who run Wimbledon there was little chance I was going to get any press tickets for the tournament. But, in the spirit of Andy Warhol, I did the next big thing – and took some pictures of Andy Murray beating the Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka on the telly instead. Weirdly, they work.

Liverpool waterfront: June 2009







Went home for the weekend to take some snaps of the all-new-and-improved technicolor Liverpool waterfront. The Liver building looks as Liver Building as ever, but there are now loads of new high-rises winding their way north from the Pier Head. From a distance they look fantastic (including the blue one that looks like a ciggie lighter), but up close they seem a bit unloved and rather forlorn and empty.



Interestingly, in amongst all the glass-and-steel-that-won’t-look-at-all-dated-in-ten-years there’s still some old bits remaining, including a decrepit landing stage (above) that looks like the last people to pay it any attention were the Luftwaffe in 1941. No doubt soon it’ll play host to another hotel/apartment/office building that, like many of the others in the city, will be a monument to one of the many generous planning department lunches that took place with suspicious regularity between 2001-2006.







One building that looks as good now as it did on the day it was completed in 1934 is the stunning Queensway Tunnel ventilation shaft off The Strand (above), which provides fresh-ish air to the cars travelling between Liverpool and Birkenhead below. As you can see from my pictures, the structure is a classic piece of art deco design, with then-fashionable Egyptian-style touches, a pair of Buddhas(!) and a sculpture on the side of a fella dressed as a pilot. Why he’s there is anyone’s guess, though I suspect it’s a nod to the aviation revolution that was beginning to change forever the way we (and goods) would travel. A revolution, ironically, that would significantly harm the transatlantic trade – and thus the city – of Liverpool. No matter, it is a magnificent structure and one worth having a snoop around on your way from the city centre to the waterfront. Click on the pics to see them in full high resolution.

The far uglier ventilation shaft for the second tunnel, the Kingsway is here. You needn’t bother going to have a look at that.

Abandoned towns from around the world





Like all men I am genetically programmed to be fascinated by creepy old settlements emptied of their populations. On this thread at dirjournal.com, the author has collated loads of photos of these places from around the world. I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but some of the images are truly mind-blowing. I’m especially a big fan of the pictures of Gunkanjima (below), a once heavily-populated island off Japan that was used for coal mining until it was abandoned in 1974. After a brief Google search I found some more pictures from here. My favourites are immediately below.

“The worst riot ever seen in Norwich”

It’s 1977 and Man Utd are playing Norwich City. The after-match aggro – and only this decade-specific adjective can be used to describe what occurs – is a flashback to more innocent times when every young man looked like Bobby Sands before he went into the Maze and nouvelle cuisine was having garlic mushrooms with your well-done steak.



The graphic depictions of muscle vests, fellas walking on asbestos roofs for no apparent reason and coppers with carpet-like moustaches cowering under a hail of missiles is one to warm the cockles of any fan of retro-thuggery. And while the voice-over journalist has the ‘Jesus-this-is-tiresome’ intonation of all commentators who covered these activities, his efforts are put in the shade by the overweight chap who appears near the end holding – and wait for this – a 1977 Silver Jubilee union jack bowler/top hat. If you, Mr Hat, are reading this then I salute your sartorial efforts from the space-age 21st Century. Come back, football needs people like you.

Palma, Mallorca – the perfect “mini metropolis”



I recently came back from Palma, the capital of Mallorca. I didn’t write about it for a few days as I contracted some horrendous lurgy in the hotel’s dirty swimming pool (brown bubbles – nice), but with a week or so’s reflection, I’m able to put the place into some perspective.





Feeling like a Seville-by-the-sea, the city combines miles of beaches with stunning medieval architecture and the sort of forward-thinking infrastructure that makes moving about easy. There are loads of buses, an ace little metro that connects the north east of the island with the capital and a wondrous cycle path that traverses all of the Bay of Palma (see final pic). In short, it works.





Reading this month’s Monocle magazine I was pleased to note that they’ve opened another one of their shops there. The store is located in Santa Catalina (above), which is Palma’s most hip quarter, a grid of roads to the west of city centre lined with low-rise terraces, many of which house bars, boutiques and excellent restaurants. It’s like Hoxton with better weather and less wankers.



The pictures here show a little of what this city offers. Give it a try.

Great pictures of Frankfurt



…courtesy of the uber-competitive, exceptionally bitchy ‘Best Skyline in Europe’ thread on Skyscraper City.

The A-Z of casual: part 2

Names


Got a mob? Get a name. The more obscure and lowly the team, the more thought went into the tag of their casual firm, as Peter Hooton explains: “When I was producing The End fanzine we got letters from the Derby-Leicester Alliance*, Wrexham Frontline, English Border Front, Wolves Subway Army, Lincoln Transit Elite… the list goes on.”
* A one-off super-mob put together to tackle Nottingham Forest’s Executive crew.

Ordinary, The
It was only in the 1960s that football supporters started following their teams in other parts of the country. To facilitate this, British Rail put on “football specials”, which would take well-behaved supporters to their ground of choice and whisk them back safely. Sadly, with no time to stop off for drink/scrap and the worst trains BR could find, smart fans soon dispensed with the specials and got on the “ordinary”, where you’d get less bother of the police and more time to peruse local men’s boutiques for pre-Switch “cashless” purchases. A punch in the face was often included in the price of a ticket.

Peter Storm and Patrick
The kings of the cagoule, these brands produced the must-have outerwear for trips away in autumn and spring, as Adidas’ Gary Aspden testifies. “It rains a lot in the north-west of England so you need something to keep you dry. Patrick cagoules came in loads of colours, we used to name ours after flavours of bags of crisps. They were intrinsic to casual fashion.”
See also: “paninari” – the fashionable Italian youths found hanging about outside sandwich (panini) shops in Milan, Rome etc. More inclined to razz about on 4cc mopeds whistling at girls for days on end than their English counterparts.

Queer
The first well-dressed lads at the match were deemed to be gay because of the effeminacy of their dress and haircuts. This changed when said effeminates starting using Stanley knives to reassert their masculinity.

Reissues
If you want to gauge the cultural power of casual, just check out how many iconic and not-so-iconic labels have reissued “classics” in an attempt to cover themselves with casual cool. Adidas Originals trade heavily on their well-earned status, this year reissuing the ST2 coat and Kegler Super trainers – two absolute early ’80s classics. Other brands have also got in on it with Farah producing whole ranges on the back of the popularity of their sta-prest trousers during the 1980s.

Scotland
While casual is seen as a specific period of time south of border (roughly 1977-1988), in Scotland, the term is still used to denote a violent, smartly-dressed football fan. The first crew to get on it were the Aberdeen, who, after meeting Liverpool in the European Cup of 1980, appropriated the Scouse look. Dons fans also followed sides like Tottenham and Arsenal, enabling shopping trips to London to stock up on designer gear. Later, Aberdeen were joined by Motherwell and Hibs in their fashion endeavours, but the twin giants of Scottish football, Celtic and Rangers remained oblivious to the cult.
See also: Stone Island, without doubt post-casual label of the 1990s, and now undergoing a renaissance.

Tracksuits


As well as heralding the era of label-worship, casual also took the tracksuit from the tennis court to the terraces and breakdance mats of urban Britain. Made as luxury items for tennis players in Italy, the likes of Sergio Tacchini’s Dallas* and Cerutti 1881’s velour top were hugely sought after, but even they had to bow to the majesty of the Fila Terrinda, which retailed for a whopping £95 on its 1986 release. Neil Primett from 80sCasualClassics.co.uk: “The Terinda was the most expensive tracksuit back then and was so aspirational. I’ve got 12 originals, which I’ve bought off eBay and they all cost between £400-£1000.”



* The Dallas was worn by John McEnroe in the 1981 “Battle of the Trackies” Wimbledon final, in which he took on a Fila-clad Bjorn Borg. What made Tacchini’s tracksuits so desirable was the instant flare the wearer could have by the facilitation of the zip at the back of trouser.

Under-fives
The youngest football mobs, with individuals usually working as “scouts” for the main firm and reporting on the whereabouts of rival crews. Not actually under five years old.

Very big bags
If Adidas gave us the trainers, then tennis brand Head provided iconic accessory of casual – the huge kit bag. These were no ordinary holdalls, the Head bag offered vast amounts of space for stolen European leisurewear to be crammed into and later sold in pubs. So popular was the bag that mobs of casuals would often turn up at the match carrying them, just because they looked so good. The first manbag.

Wedge
The ultimate casual haircut, the wedge was actually invented in London in 1974 as a women’s style, but was soon adopted by the capital’s soul boys*. Cut short at the back, with a long, parted fringe that covered one eye, it was taken up by Scouse casuals when David Bowie sported one on the cover of his Low album.
*Flash, mid-’70s soul boys are seen by some as forerunners to casuals in the capital.

Xtra time
After Heysel, the “classic” casual brands fell out of favour. Instead European preppy labels like C-17, Chipie and Ciao became popular – usually coupled with a long-on-top short back and sides. Before the 1990 World Cup in Italy, brands like Duffer of St George and Burro used soccer as the basis for lots of their garments, including the iconic T-shirt. Alongside Gazza’s tears and Nick Hornby’s Fever Pitch, they were responsible for laying the foundations of the 1990s football boom.

Yachting
While the cool months of the year were taken care of, clothes-wise, in the summer the only sport that could compete with tennis for clobber was yachting. Deck shoes by the likes of Sebago were especially popular, though the nearest they ever got to sea water was wading through the puddles in the car park outside Stoke City’s Victoria Ground.

Z-list brands
Not everyone could afford/steal the top labels, which meant that it wasn’t long before cheap imitations came out, often sold in markets and bought by mums with the words: “Look, it’s exactly the same as the one you wanted, but it’s £20 cheaper. Anyway, I prefer the shark to that crocodile.” Brands included, Ennesse, Gallini, Le Shark and St Helens’ finest Tacchini rip-offs, Walker. The thought of them makes many a casual shudder even now.