Skinny Jeans

So there I was in the changing rooms in a men’s clothing establishment about to try on a pair of jeans. This is something I have done  many times before, usually with great success because I am average in every way – average waist and average regular trouser length.

I don’t want to scare you all by getting into too much detail but suffice it to say I had to take off my shoes and trousers in order to try on the new pair (try not to picture me in my shreddies, dear reader – you can’t unsee an image like that).  After all, it would be pointless trying to haul a pair of jeans over another pair wouldn’t it?

Not even I am stupid enough to do that.

The exercise was supposed to be straightforward; I pull on the new jeans, check that they fit my slightly expanding waistline, check that they are not too long or too short and see if they actually look good on me, rather than making me look like an abnormal alien creature.

It all sounded too simple – until I actually attempted to get the things on. Being an old coot, I didn’t really check them well enough. There seemed to be an extra dimension – a “fit”.

I had heard of things like “boot cut”, “loose”, “straight”, “tapered”, “slim” and “skinny” and I knew my limits.

Sadly, a malicious, evil and possibly incompetent buffoon had mixed up the jean “fits”. I can imagine the evil sneaking satanic swine swapping the trousers, putting the “boot cut” on the “tapered” section, the “slim” on the “tapered” section and sniggering as his victim took the wrong pair.

The jeans themselves had no warning of what was to come – no sign that said “wear these jeans at your own risk”.

I had picked up what I thought were “tapered” jeans. There was no sign to tell me otherwise – only the price tag, the waist size and the leg length.

I thought I would slide my leg in easily.I was wrong – horribly wrong.

My pushed my foot in expecting an easy slide to the hole at the end of the leg and it got stuck so suddenly that I stumbled and almost overbalanced, hurtling forward towards the curtain before I managed to reach for the wall.

Imagine if I had lost my balance completely and fallen out of the room in my underpants?  No – please don’t do that.

I was so relieved that I managed to lose a little more common sense.  I know that new jeans can be a little stiff but I was determined to win. Part of me thought that my leg had grown so thick in my old age that even tapered jeans were a struggle to peel on.

Reason gave way to more stupidity. I was overcome by a sense of competitiveness that is unusual for me; I would pull these jeans on if it killed me, if nothing else to prove that I wasn’t just getting bigger in my old age. The denim would slacken as I wore them, I figured. I didn’t consider that I would look ridiculous in tapered jeans that were too tight.

I had to sit down.

I have fairly big calves anyway (I do a lot of walking) and once I had got my foot past further in, I had to apply immense force to peel these bastards onto my leg.

“Stop it,” screamed an inner voice. “They don’t fit.”

I ignored this inner voice of reason and persevered, groaning as I hauled the leg of the jean over my knee and upper thigh.

“Are you okay in there?” came a voice from outside.

“Yeah,” I said thinking that I sounded nonchalant.

I tried the next leg and the struggle was possibly worse. I found myself standing there with a pair of jeans halfway up my upper thighs. With more crazy resolve, I pulled the jeans the rest of the way, somehow managing to slide them over my arse.

I looked at myself in the mirror; I was bright red and sweating like a pig that had just run a marathon.

I managed to fasten the trousers at the front and button them up – but it was hard, dear reader. I could feel my circulation being cut off and I won’t even describe the feeling around my nether regions.

I turned around and I looked like a sack of potatoes perched precariously on two thin branches.

At least they weren’t those low slung jeans that don’t cover your underpants; that would have been far worse.

There was enough room to walk around a little in the cubicle and I tried, dear reader, I tried. These bloody jeans actually squeaked as I moved and I let out at least two involuntary high-pitched squeaks of my own.

The pain of walking around in these satanic jeans focussed my mind.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?” I asked myself.

With much relief, I sat down to take the things off but in a moment of manic madness I realised I had forgotten to unfasten them.

How I didn’t squeal is a miracle to me. I had to stand up again.

It took me ten minutes to peel the bastards off – it felt like they had been superglued to my legs.

Eventually I got them off and with much relief I put my old ones back on again. I left the changing room, still red with the effort of extricating myself from their clutches and, as I handed them back to the man looking after the changing room, he smiled knowingly.

“A bit too skinny for you?” he asked.

“Skinny?” I asked. “I got them from the tapered section.”

He looked at me as if I had gone mad. “Can’t you tell?” he asked sniggering.

I was so embarrassed that I left the shop in shame.

As I wandered around trying to recover from the humiliation and assault by a pair of skinny jeans, I noticed that a few young lads walking around the shopping centre were wearing them.

These things had nearly castrated me and here were young 20 year old males with skinny legs walking around in jeans that were around four times too small for them.

And I swear, dear reader; every one of them squeaked!

Female Fashion (And Other Impossible Subjects)

I want to return to a favourite topic of mine: women.

Regular readers will know that I love women; I love watching them and talking to them. They fascinate me with their beauty, personality and charm.

My problem is that I simply do not understand them. The women in my life have tried to explain to me how their minds work but, just as I think I have grasped the mechanism that makes them tick, they astound me with behaviour that contradicts everything I thought I had learned.

If you didn’t already know, dear reader, I am forty seven years old and I STILL cannot fathom the machinations of the female psyche.

I would like to discuss an imponderable topic in the world of women: fashion.

I am a man and I know what I like when it comes to women. Physical appearance is important but I am also very fond of intelligent, strong and funny women. Most men are the same. Men are initially attracted to the looks but will only form a lasting relationship if she has intelligence and depth.

I couldn’t, for example, fall for a woman who looked like Megan Fox if she had the IQ of a dung beetle.

Yet sometimes, even the most intelligent women on the planet can fall foul of expectations driven by fashion and beauty magazines. I don’t understand it. I have overheard beautiful women chatting about their problems in this area and my perception is that their IQ drops several points when discussing clothes, makeup and the shape and size of their bodies.

Now that may sound chauvinistic and insulting but that’s the way it appears to me.

Am I wrong?

It’s as if some women simply switch off part of their brains when it comes to decisions in this area and sometimes make terrible choices based on their assessment of what men want, what other women want and what the fashion and beauty industry tells them they ought to want.

To balance things out, men are equally guilty of switching off their brains and allowing their penis to take control of their bodies but that it something for another post.

Women love buying clothes. As a man, I only buy clothes when the rags I am wearing have so many holes that I appear naked when viewed from a distance. Mrs PM steps in way before that happens thankfully, otherwise Manchester would be a city in turmoil: I would become the Mancunian equivalent of the Loch Ness Monster.

There are several things that puzzle me when it comes to female clothing.

Firstly, can somebody explain to me what is going on when it comes to sizes?

When I go into a shop to buy a pair of trousers, I have a rough idea of the size of my waist (34 inches), the size of my leg (30 or 31 inches) and can stroll over to the trouser rack and be pretty sure that the 34 inch regular length trousers will fit me. Similarly, I can stroll to the shirts and deduce that the 16 inch collared shirts will not strangle me and that the 38 inch chest jacket will almost certainly be a perfect fit.

Women have a major problem in this area. They have to go for a size 8,10,12,14,16,18,20 in absolutely every item they want with the exception of shoes.

What the hell is a “size 12”?

12 what exactly?

Inches? Feet? Broom handles? Elephants?

You may mock those latter two units of size but some of the variations in items of clothing vary so much from shop to shop that a size 12 in one shop may be tiny enough to fit a baby chimpanzee while in another shop a size 12 could accommodate a rhinoceros.

What is going on? Can somebody explain this to me?

Correct me if I am wrong but most human beings are completely different shapes and sizes. Thankfully men do not wear all in one outfits like dresses (although some do I suppose). Women are different shapes both at the top half of their bodies and the lower regions.

So how can a dress be a size 12?

This is a constant source of frustration for Mrs PM, for example, and she is definitely not alone.

She can, say, fit into a size 14 top and a size 12 skirt but struggles with dresses because the size 12 may suffocate her while the size 14 can look like a Bedouin tent. I’ve known her to try on a size 14 dress and then beg for me to call search and rescue because she can’t find her way out of it.

I can only surmise that the sizing scale for women’s clothes was conceived by a sadistic madman who did so for a drunken bet.

Fashion magazines haven’t helped matters. I think that shops vary their sizes to make women believe that they are smaller than they are in order to appeal to their vanity or perception of how others see them. A large lady will be delighted if she can go to a shop and squeeze into a size 14 and I imagine will boast to her friends that she is slim enough to do so, even though in that particular shop, a size 14 would fit a horse.

I cannot think of a reason why a shop would design a size 14 that would barely fit a stick insect – perhaps somebody can enlighten me.

One thing is for sure, from my experience of shopping with both W and Mrs PM, the clothes for women that are on sale in your average shopping centre are designed for women who appear only in fashion magazines, i.e. are average height and are built like scarecrows.

All of which leads me nicely on to my next topic – the portrayal of women in fashion magazines and similar female oriented rags.

Quite frankly I am astounded. Lots of models for these magazines are very pretty but, and let’s be fair to them here, are thinner than my garden rake. And these women are portrayed as the quintessential image of womankind and therefore a target for young impressionable women and girls. I have seen pictures of women who look as if they do not eat and impressionable girls are led to believe that all women should look like this.

I have read about the “quest for size zero”, which I believe is encouraging women to diet beyond the realms that nature intended in order to become the perfect woman.

However, I have a revelation for you: it is utter bollocks and complete horseshit.

I have a message for any ladies out there who strive for size zero under the misguided belief that men (or indeed other sensible women) may find them attractive:

Don’t do it! Be yourself!

Obviously, don't eat so much that you resemble a beached whale. You can still be curvy and attractive without having to pander to the requirements of fashion gurus.

Most men prefer women who are sizes 12 to 16. I love cuddling a woman who, as my dad used to say, “has a bit of meat on her”.

Take Beyoncé for example. I believe she is a size 12 (UK size that is) and she looks fabulous. She is curvy in all the right places.

Louise Redknapp attempted to diet to fit herself into a size zero dress as part of an investigative documentary. Here are the before and after photos. I know which I prefer.

There is a lot of pressure on women and it comes from the cult of celebrity and fashion media and quite frankly it stinks. I am beginning to understand why it is so difficult for women to shop for clothes and also why they have so much difficulty trying to fit the image the faceless so-called gurus and self-obsessed arseholes try to force them into.

My advice, for what it is worth, is to adopt the mantra that I and most normal men live by: be yourself and be normal.

I don’t care too much about my appearance (that much is obvious)!

The only thing that irritates me is my hair (but only because people laugh at it). I strive to be a normal bloke, wearing clothes that I like (not those that fashion gurus tell me I should wear) and I try to maintain an average shaped body. Yes, my stomach is expanding and yes, my body looks nothing like that of Brad Pitt. But I am not a freak (despite my self-deprecating posts saying otherwise). I eat a balanced diet but I don't feel bad about eating chocolate and crisps (although I don't eat them to excess).

I could have spent hours at the gym trying to sculpt my body into the shape of Arnold Schwarzenengger but it would have been pointless. My life wouldn’t have improved and I would have ended up a fat bloater by now.


Women should not strive to be as thin as a rake – adopt the middle ground. Don’t overeat and become too fat but equally don't starve yourself – just be who you are. Men love a cuddle but they don’t like to hug a bag of sticks made of skin.

Crikey – I’m beginning to sound like an agony aunt aren’t I?

I apologise for that – I can only give you the benefit of my thoughts, opinions and desires.

As for the actual clothes that women buy – I simply cannot have an opinion other than it should show off all the greatest assets of the woman’s body.

However, I have one more question: why would a woman wear a skirt?

I am not complaining because a woman with fantastic legs can send my pulse racing like a formula one racing car on speed – and that’s probably why they do it – well not for me personally (I think most women would prefer to cover themselves up in a suit of armour when faced by the prospect of meeting me).

The weather in Great Britain is nothing if not unpredictable and towards the end of September the temperatures plummet. Yet you can guarantee that there will be young women wandering around wearing short skirts exposing their legs to the bitterly cold winds.

In winter, I am very pleased that I wear thick jeans to protect my legs from the cold. Yet what do even sensible women wear? Skirts with only tights for protection against the elements.

And then they complain about being cold.

Why?

Am I missing something here?

I’m sure that there are guys who wear skirts – David Beckham famously popped out in a sarong but he was probably enjoying life in a warm place like Madrid or Los Angeles. Also, he is so famous that he could get away with anything (and frequently does).

Of course, there are my fellow island-dwellers, the Scots, who claim to be so hard that they wear big woolly skirts (or as they prefer to call them “kilts”), sporting absolutely nothing underneath the protect their tallywhackers.

No wonder they like the term “Braveheart”. You’d have to be brave to wear a bloody kilt, especially in the middle of a Scottish winter.

Anyway, I’d better stop now before Mad Jack McMad crosses the border to kick seven shades of crap out of me.


I might try interviewing Mrs PM to see if she can shed any light on women and fashion. On second thoughts, perhaps not – she might drag me out shopping illustrate her answers.

We Are The Goon Squad And We're Coming To Town!

Mrs PM uses a phrase that is almost guaranteed to make my teeth itch. The phrase is:

It’s SO over!

She uses it to inform me that my ideas, dress sense, musical taste, etc. are no longer in vogue. When I play a Def Leppard song she will say “Why are you listening to 80’s rock music? It’s SO over!”

When I wear my crusty old leather jacket she will say. “It’s about time you threw that away. That design is SO over!”

The time she uses it most is when we go out and I decide to wear a favourite shirt that I bought a year or two ago (one that she hasn’t hidden or thrown away). I can read her mind when I come downstairs and present myself to her.

Me: What do you think?

Mrs PM: Why don’t you wear that black shirt I bought you last week?

Me: I want to wear this one. I like this shirt.

Mrs PM: But it’s SO over!

You can guarantee that the shirt will somehow find it's way into a remote part of the house - if it's lucky!!

What Mrs PM forgets, is that I am definitely not a dedicated follower of fashion. In fact, I am the complete opposite; a fashion barbarian.

I stopped actively taking in interest in clothes when I was in my mid 20’s. Sadly, the women in my life have not allowed me to pursue this course of action and have vetoed the vast majority of garments I have attempted to buy.

I remember, when I was 18, dressing up in what I thought were spectacular clothes that would have me fighting off all the young women of Walsall as they threw themselves at my amazing body. As I was about to leave the house, my younger sister said, “You’re not going out looking like THAT are you?” Needless to say, the only think thrown at me that night were drinks (as usual). What I failed to realise when I was a teenager was that no matter how trendy the outfit, I still looked like a bucket of arse on legs.

Nowadays, Mrs PM will always find time to accompany me on shopping trips if I intend to buy any item of clothing, fearing that I will buy something bland or featureless.

Mrs PM: Where are you going?

Me: I’m off to the shops. I need a pair of trousers and a couple of shirts.

Mrs PM: I’m coming with you.

Me: I thought you had to go to work.

Mrs PM: I’ll call them and tell them I can’t make it. This is far more important.

Me: But what if you get the sack?

Mrs PM: There are always other jobs.

Actually, that’s an exaggeration (though not much of one).

When Mrs PM and I moved into our first house together. I unpacked my suitcases and installed all of my clothes into the wardrobe. Within minutes, Mrs PM had made it her mission to change the way I looked. I’m sure that I was downstairs for just two minutes when I heard what I thought was a tornado in the bedroom. I went upstairs and found Mrs PM, hurling my shirts out of the wardrobe in a flurry of wind and expletives.

“What on earth were you thinking when you bought this?” she howled holding up a shirt with a look of purest malevolence.

“I bought that in 1988,” I said gulping nervously. “I love that shirt.”

“This is 1998,” she said slowly as if talking to a five year old. “THIS SHIRT IS SO OVER!”

In the next two weeks, I spent a fortune replacing the majority of my clothes, with Mrs PM standing over me like a tyrant as I tried on shirt after terrible shirt in the fitting room.

“DO NOT BUY THAT!” she would say as I held up what I thought was a fabulous T-shirt for her approval.

I often wonder whether, if left to my own devices, I would truly buy a wardrobe full of dreadful clothes.

I'm sure that I would never mutate into an eccentric weirdo wearing only wore tweed jackets and corduroy shirts. All I've ever wanted is to wear decent everyday garments that are slightly different from everybody else. I don't want to be out for an evening’s entertainment and wearing almost identical apparel to every other man in Manchester. Unfortunately, any plans I harbour in this direction have been thwarted by Mrs PM; she insists that I become a clone of sorts, dragging me to high street chains and forcing me to buy clothes that the other sheep were buying.

If you want to see a sad sight on a Saturday afternoon, just visit a shop like Burtons. You will undoubtedly see a couple come in and you will recognise them immediately. He will have a sad look of resignation on his face; his eyes will be screaming “I don’t want to be here”.

The poor man will pick up a shirt and his partner will glare at him and replace it with another that she has chosen. He will reluctantly try it on in the fitting room, while she prowls around the shop like a hungry predator, selecting other items for him before standing guard outside the fitting rooms like a benevolent dictator. Some time later the couple will leave; she will have a look of satisfaction on her face; he will wonder how he has managed to spend £350 on several items of clothing that he doesn’t even like.

I am that man. Mrs PM is that woman. And there are thousands if not millions of similar couples in Great Britain.

I may have implied that if given the freedom by Mrs PM to buy what I want, that I would look for something unique and outrageous. You would be wrong.

Why? Because I have always questioned the sanity of so-called “fashion gurus”. Like contemporary artists, they have somehow managed to persuade the rest of us that their bizarre designs are “must have” fashion items – and then they charge a fortune for them. And we, like idiots, actually pay the crazy amounts of cash they charge. Worse, they parade their peculiar designs on famous people in the hope that the rest of the sheep will follow suit.

Who decides what next year’s fashion should be? A faceless elite who laugh all the way to the bank having pulled the wool over our eyes.

And why on earth do we, like lost sheep, go out and buy these bloody things? I know why I do – partly to please Mrs PM and partly because there is no other choice – unless I choose to go to an “old man’s” shop.

These people redefine the word "eccentric" and have somehow managed to introduce a whole new language of bullshit, using phrases like “blue is the new black”, “that is so last season” and “you look FIERCE”.

Whenever I watch a fashion report on the TV, I laugh my head off. We are presented with models looking like stick insects, marching down a catwalk in front of a captive, brainwashed audience, wearing clothes that can only be described as ridiculous.

The models are not appealing at all; most men I know prefer a woman to hold onto; somebody with a bit of meat on them (as my dad used to say), not a size zero woman who is so skinny that she is almost invisible.

If you are a woman and you believe that size zero is a great target I have one piece of advice; stay a size 10 or 12. Most men love women who they can cuddle up to.

Bizarre fashions are not just restricted to women. Male models are forced to prance up and down a catwalk wearing clothes that most men would run a mile from.

If you were to put these bizarre garments on an ordinary girl or an ordinary bloke and then send them out onto your average High Street, they would be laughing stocks. People would fall over in fits of hysterical laughter.

Yet people (those with more money than sense) are quite content to spend magnificently huge amounts of money on such items and make complete fools of themselves on red carpets all over the world. A corollary of that is that ordinary people want to copy them. You may find a superstar like David Beckham, content to shave off his hair and wear a skirt but the sad thing is that other men who are mere mortals will look absolutely ridiculous.

You will never, ever, ever, ever find me wearing anything outlandish and, given the choice, I wouldn’t succumb to the latest fashion craze that most men are forced to endure by their ladies. With the greatest respect to myself, I look like the product of the union of an albino baboon and a walrus so any "decent" item of clothing makes me look like an ape in fancy dress.

Imagine what I would look like wearing anything that an icon like David Beckham would wow the crowd at a party with?

I would look like an orang-utan wearing a tent.

Take a look at some of the following items. Can you imagine a middle-aged, crazy-haired arse like me walking down to the pub wearing anything like them?






I would look like a sentient sack of sewage and, of course, I would totally refuse to wear them.

I pray that similar items do NOT become fashion because I’m sure that Mrs PM will drag me around the shops despite my protestations.

The fashion police, as misguided as they are, would almost certainly hurl me in jail for crimes against the human eye. Can you imagine fashion prison? All the inmates would probably end up wearing something by Vivienne Westwood, the woman who gave us this:


Can you imagine me wearing these? Hello! HELLO!! Are you alright? Should I call a doctor?