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Wednesday 1 October 2008

How do you wear a cardigan ironically?

One has to start with an apology for the bitterness of yesterdays post. Sorry. It's only a wee apology because I meant every acerbic word of it. But seriously though have the greedy tax people got nothing better to be at than seeking out waiters and our meager scraps. I mean it's it's not like we finish each night of with a discussion about what colour speedboats we are gonna get and bemoaning the difficulty in finding a good source of high quality caviar for the huge hippity hop style parties we regularly throw. Covetous beasts, the tax man that is. We are just beasts....

But the bitterness doesn't end there.

thin twin the male

Whilst sauntering through town on Monday on my way to the dark place, work that is, I happened to find myself walking towards some of those shiny people who hand out handbills for shiny nightclubs. There were two of them, one skinny shiny woman and one ultra skinny, ultra shiny boy. You know the sort - hair by Fraggle Rock and clothes by Helen Keller. The sort of people that wear their cardigans ironically and sport sunglasses all the time. They wear cardigans and look "cool", I wear the same cardigan and I look like an old fella trying to stay warm. Sake, even their accessories had accessories.

Idiots.

They needed a good dinner or twelve stuffed down their scrawny throats too, there's more meat on a butchers apron. It wasn't their "hip" dress sense nor was it their waif like figures that caused me the bitterness, it something much sadder than that.

Much much sadder.

I had my headphones on and was bopping to the twee indie stylings of Camera Obscura, well as much as anyone can bop on a wet Monday afternoon whilst heading to work. As I got closer to the thin twins I popped out my hand in readiness to collect their lovely leaflet. Thin twin the female made eye contact, she smiled, she peeled a handbill form the large pile in her other hand. I made eye contact, I moved my arm a little further out to collect it. It was all very slow-mo. Just as I reached to collect it thin twin the male grabbed her arm and shot her a filthy look. It was part puzzlement and part "Him? Are you fucking mad?"

What did she do?

She withdrew the handbill, that's what. She took it from the very near clutches of my sweaty man hand. She, under the guidance and arm pulling of thin twin the male, retracted her invitation. I was left walking away looking very camp with my right arm outstretched much like a supermodel on a catwalk. Ok you have to bend your mind to imagine that, more a supermodel on a catwalk in bizarro world.

But what was I to do with my arm? Obviously the smart thing to do would have been to quickly drop it to my side but not me, oh no not me. Instead I left it out there, limp and hanging. I was trying to act cool, like I hadn't been reaching for a handbill all along, like this is how I walk around town normally. I was aiming for nonchalant but instead I just looked creepy and weird.

I soon dropped my arm as I figured I was fooling no one. With the status of my arm having been resolved I soon switched my attention to what had just happened. Thin twin the male had judged me, in a matter of seconds, and found me to be lacking the required street cred, the requisite look and probably the mandatory youth befitting the club he was whoring for on a Monday afternoon. Well fuck you, you dinner dodging slave to the styleosophy of the naughties metro sexual void. I wouldn't darken the doors of your tawdry discotheque even if I had the energy, which by the way, I don't.

They are still called discotheques right?

Pre my Thin Twin encounter I was feeling chipper, dandy, and dare I say even perky. But post my Thin Twin dalliance I was positively melancholic. Can you be positively melancholic, unless you are EMO that is? Well I was depressed anyway. Two emaciated "fashionistas" had found me wanting and had effectively ruined my day. What did they know anyway? I have a very fine collection of check shirts at home that could be matched up rather snazzily with some slacks and comfortable shoes.

Who am I kidding?

But fuck it one day they will get hungry, one day in the future that is, and they will wander, in that slacker way of theirs, in my direction and then the fun really will begin. I'll show them what rejection really is.

Mwahahahahahaha!

Now where did I put that comfortable ironic cardigan of mine?

37 People trying to get Manuel's attention:

Anonymous said...

"Hair like Fraggle Rock and clothes like Helen Keller" - loves it!!! that describes most of the young people that dander into my drop-in centre to a T. manuel you're a leg-end!

Manuel said...

byw: a leg-end maybe, but not leg-endary enough to get into Milk or Thompsons or one of those shitty holes....

Melissa and Paul said...

You know you're getting old when...

Cardigan-wearing stick insects judge you as too uncool for their skanky night club.

Sometimes, Manuel, it's a very fine thing to be growing old.

Manuel said...

melissa: skanky! that's the word I was struggling for earlier....old? me? never!!!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

They were smoking Marlboro lights, they were, mentalist me knows they were. Marlboro light smoking pull throughs. Funny though, I can see your vacuous trailing arm, carving a beautiful arc. What can you do Manuel?

Hey, that butcher’s apron. I thought it was something else.

Manuel said...

sniffle & cry: i was very kenneth williams......

Anonymous said...

In a good way?

Manuel said...

sniffle & cry: Oh you are awful! is there a bad way to be kenneth williams?

Anonymous said...

Wonderful post, by the fucking way.
I'm away to my mountains.

savannah said...

i am so over the little twats, sugar! the sun will set for them, too...and then you'll laugh! xoxox

(what goes around, comes around, eh?)

(btw, ditto what belfastyouthworker said! that description was pure joy!)

paddy said...

Don't fret mate - heroin is on the way back. It's the great population leveller for the uber-cool. They're like lemmings with that shit!

On a similar note, thirty-something mate of mine was DJing at one of them skinny hipster clubs and nearly missed his set as the door staff ruled him too old and too bald for admission.The promoter said by way of apology that they normally don't allow people over 23 in. It ruins the vibe apparently.

Manuel said...

sniffle & cry: cheers mountain man!

savannah: awh shucks thanks.....

paddy: that's stinking man! love the heroin retort....remark? retort? whatever.....

Anonymous said...

When you get close to 50 they will hand you the pamphlet and you will take it and they will think you are the coolest dude ever!Then when you get to the nearest garbage can you will just crunch it up and smile.

carine said...

i think what actually happened was that the skinny skanky twat in the cardigan was a bit overawed and intimidated by your level of cool.

Praps he could hear Camera Obscura coming from your headphones? It's daunting stuff to a young whipper snapper like he.

x

Anonymous said...

The little judgemental fucktards! God, that would make me angry. Saying that tho, Milk and Thompsons aren't exactly Belfasts top spots now are they. Hope the wee twats overdose.

Manuel said...

steve: fingers crossed!

carine: I very much doubt it........very much......but thanks for the thought

sheepo: fucktards...good word. I was actually barred from Thompsons years and years ago. Oh happy day......

Red said...

Dublin is full of those sorts, they piss me off no end. although when i walk pass them I always feel very uncool (not that I'm cool anyway..), says more about me than them I suppose...
Bill Bailey did this thing on eating meat ironically, very funny.
Love the blog Manuel, you always make me laugh in the mornings

Manuel said...

red hair, red face: and cry at night? I cry at night, I snuggle into my cardigan and Farah slacks and sob inconsolably about my non-cool status.......oh no actually I dont! awh thanks red hairy girl

Anonymous said...

very amusing post. I wear a cardigan, but not in an ironic way........I wonder how long we have to wait for the terrible twosome to enter your kingdom ?

Red said...

no i cry into my skinny jeans...better soakage....

fatmammycat said...

Cardigans? I'm thinking Val Doonican...is he hip?

Anonymous said...

Which discotheque were they promoting Manuel?

Go on, name and shame them!

Anonymous said...

Ask yourself Manuel, how cool is a flunky handing out fliers on the street....more wannabe I say.
Console yourself in the fact that the refusal to give you one (oh matron!) meant he had to stand out in the cold for that bit longer.

Manuel said...

redleeroy: years I'd say.....

red hair red face: awh......just like me, all my jeans become skinny in the end.....

fmc: I'll ask dad........Dad says yes! go val, go val.......! Is he even still alive?

dave: I dunno! I never got the bloody flyer in the end....

anfearbui: bwahahahaha never thought of that!

Unknown said...

If only you'd been listening to The Cardigans.

There needs to be venues where types like that turn up and get told to fuck off by the bouncers, "Sorry kids, no cardys, and anyway, it's 'confirmed-heterosexuals-over-35-night'"

Manuel said...

conan: Ironically I cant stand that band.....

Anonymous said...

If you think that's bad, wait until those flyer-giver-outer people actually APPROACH you in the street and try to give you one of their fliers, because you'd be PERFECT for their establishment.

Happened to me in Dublin once, there I was standing, minding my own business, when a very chirpy chappy approached me and stuffed a flyer into my hand and said:

"Heyyyyyy, you're what we're looking for, we're a new weight loss clinic here in town. Would YOU like to lose 10lb???!??!?!"

He wasn't so chipper when I smacked him in the gob.

The louser.

Manuel said...

karen: ooooooooooooh the cheeky bastard......no jury could convict you for beating him to a merry pulp

Anonymous said...

There is no cool way to hand out fliers. I don't care what slouch-chic uniform people wear, it is a fundamentally uncool thing to do to bug people in the street with junk they probably won't even glance at anyway.

Manuel said...

sam: I concur with gusto! lazy fuckers should get a real job.....

Anonymous said...

The absolute cheek. I'm indignant on your behalf.

Manuel said...

rapture: your indignation pleases me......

Megan McGurk said...

Manuel, one of my students wrote that I looked like I was in my late 40s in his in-class assignment and it shook me for a full day afterwards.
I feel your pain with the hipster jerks!

Manuel said...

medbh: lets gang up on them and kick the smug little fuckers to death.....or until we have to stop for a smoke.....oh right you're off them

Anonymous said...

Hilarious! I can see you (or my version of you at least) mincing past with your arm out. You should have 'given them the finger' before you pulled in your hand!

Manuel said...

bk: yes i was mincing......i don't mince well....

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