timsinister wrote:
Nah, this sort of thing makes me cringe, because it does rock our boat. It's hard enough getting by with a decent jacket and shades after dark...these idiots make life that little bit worse.
No s**t, I've walked through town with you many a time and I can testify to the fact that you do attract a significant amount of jolly Northern "humour", especially with
le chapeaux
I used to get the s**t ripped out of me (well I did wear a cornucopia of cringeworthy fashion choices, from PVC trousers to purple lipstick, into Glasgow city centre, and this was in the '90's

), but these days I don't seem to attract so much as a snigger no matter what I wear. Possibly because I lost the whole teenage "I'm so anti-"society" and misanthropic" vibe, 'cos minus the dodgy trousers I don't look much different. I'm just a lot less self-conscious now, look people in the eye and got a bit more humour about the whole thing. It was character-building
I think it's a very simplistic - and rather childish - view to place anyone who wears a dog collar as an "individual" flying in the face of "the masses" and "convention", and to assume that is without exception a positive thing. Human beings
are herd animals, like it or not our societies are one of the keys to our success and survival and it's very hard to organise a society without convention. That's not to say we should be slaves to it, and that there is no place for those who aren't blind followers - far from it. But I get really sick of people just (rather ironically) jumping on the trendy, lazy-thinking bandwagon of saying everyone should "do their own thing" all the time. If we all operated as complete individuals, without any common ideas or views, we'd all be constantly ripping each other to pieces, or at the very least nothing would ever get done as there would be no consensus. We'd disintegrate.
I'm all for great and original individuals fulfilling a particular role in society, innovators and catalysts for real change - but you know, I don't think wearing a Lip Service trenchcoat and dragging your girlfriend around by the neck quite fits that bill. Far more common than genuinely original individuals are those who like to
think they are.
Just my two euros, natch
