On the train.

Travelling to London on a brilliantly sunny day, I read a proper printed newspaper instead of just browsing online. This is something I usually only do at weekend. I’m not entirely convinced that it really is worth the £2 I paid for the privilege but there it is.

I am travelling down south to help celebrate the 4th birthday of our granddaughter and also to give a kind of sewing tutorial to my daughter-in-law. We arranged this when the southern branch of the family visited at Christmas. So I have my sewing kit in my luggage and a length of fabric to complete a project. There was a suggestion that I might take my sewing machine along but, despite its claim to be portable, it weighs far too much for casual carrying around.

Bits of nonsense I have noticed in the paper:

There is a fashionable-clothing company called Unravel Project. They describe themselves, or at any rate the newspaper describes them, as a “streetwear brand”, whatever that means. Maybe it means that they don’t do nightclothes and underwear. Anyway, their clothes are bought by the likes of Kim Kardashian. The item selected for ridicule by the columnist is a range of legless, crotchless jeans. This is essentially little more than a denim belt, the top bit of a pair of jeans, maybe down to about five inches from the waistband. Or I suppose it could be a very, very mini mini skirt. Like these equally silly jeans shorts, it has pockets hanging down below the bottom of the garment, which has no hem and therefore will fray attractively! You can tell I am not impressed! It sells for £290! You have to have silly money to spend if you are buying such a garment.

Also in the fashion pages, something called Trendwatch, they flag up “How fashion reinvented the kilt”. This is basically putting various different tartans together to make skirts which bear some vague similarity to the traditional Scots kilt. Apart from one from Le Kilt, which markets at £440, most sell at around £50. Still rather silly stuff!

At Piccadilly station I discovered a small improvement on the coffee-selling front, at least in one coffee vendor’s stall. It is now possible to buy a flat white, which is nearly a normal coffee with milk and nothing fancy, in two sizes: small and medium. “Medium” is what most other coffees call “small” but “small” is just about right, the size of a normal cup of coffee such as you might drink for breakfast. Well, what I might drink for breakfast, at least!

Progress of sorts!