Let’s talk about fashion. It’s not something I really bother with – but that doesn’t stop me going on about it.
I care more about comfort. That is why I wear thick cardigans, bodywarmers, boban socks made from homespun wool, and Harris Tweed underpants.
That was a joke, although I did once appear on stage in Harris Tweed underthings in a dramatic society production. Well, it was January.
Should I admit it? My favourite undergarments are Y-fronts. I know they can look very saggy, but so what?
Yes, there are boxers and Calvin Kleins in my drawer of drawers, but they were Christmas gifts. Thank you, cousins and other gift-givers. Mocked about this by my own family, they call them Why Fronts. I put up with it.
Now, I don’t have to. That’s down to a footballer, Manchester City striker Erling Haaland, who has started a new trend with old drawers. Haaland was photographed in his team’s dressing room with his mate, rocker Noel Gallagher. Erling is in his white undercrackers. It seems that, since that photo hit social media, demand for old, droopy drawers like mine has gone up almost 50%.
Y-fronts are suddenly cool again. Fashion is like the bus to Harris. If you wait long enough, another one will come along, eventually.
And, if you wait long enough, the month of June will eventually be here. I mention that because “ne’er cast a cloot ’til May is oot”. That old saying means keep wrapped up until June.
It’s so cold, I’m still wearing a fashionable semmit. The test is the butter barometer. Take a piece of cold toast in the morning and try to spread it with butter. If the butter is so firm it tears the toast apart, it is still too cold to take off your semmit. Simple.
Islands are welcoming lots of wheezer-geezers
It’s a simple fact that there are a lot of cyclists on island roads just now. Whether they are on sleek racing bikes or the more genteel battery-powered ones with pannier bags packed for their holiday needs, they’re everywhere.
Clearly cheaper than a campervan, and there is a cost-of-living crisis on, you know, these brave souls wheeze their way up island hills from the Butt to Barra.
Last week, I met two such wheezer-geezers from Oban who had pedalled from Uist to Ness and were on the return journey to Lochboisdale, to be ferried back to Oban.
Chatting to them in Leverburgh, they said that, although they were not what you would call the youngest cyclists on the road, it was something they had always wanted to do. They had good weather most of the time.
The road-mender and the plumber told me to forget when I saw them, as they had reached Leverburgh in better time than they had predicted. The hardy duo did not want the folks back in Argyll to know they had found it no problem, although they were saddle-sore.
You don’t get any sympathy for a sore behind if you say it was a pi-pi-piece of cake. Oops, I almost resorted to unparliamentary language there – like Mhairi Black.
Ant and Dec aren’t This Morning-friendly
Soon, someone better at getting polite words out than the Paisley MP is going to be hosting This Morning. This magazine show, which surveys indicate is mainly watched by the unemployed and home workers, has had its problems.
Longtime hosts Holly and Phil are taking a wee break. Oh, an update: Phil is taking a very long break. Now I see some media speculating that Ant and Dec may move to This Morning. What? No, no, no. Ant and Dec would be far too boisterous.
We all need to be eased into our mornings and pampered with soothing tones and PG Tips or Nescafé before we can even think about leaving the house. Imagine the shock if that restless pair suddenly switched on a camera under your TV and then began shouting: “Congratulations! You’ve got a place on the plane!”
Meanwhile, getting a place at a table at a fashionable restaurant in Stornoway recently was a certain elegant gentleman and his two young kids. They looked at the menu and chose various children’s favourites. The dad’s particular favourite wasn’t there.
He called over the waitress and, speaking on behalf of himself and the kids, asked: “May we have two fish fingers and chips, please. And we would like a special favour – is there any chance that we could have a lobster tail?”
I am told that the helpful waitress, who was in her first week in the job since leaving the playgroup she had worked at, smiled sweetly and nodded, knowingly. She knelt down to be level with the children and began: “Once upon a time, there was this handsome lobster…”
Iain Maciver is a former broadcaster and news reporter from the Outer Hebrides
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