Summer 2011 Fashion for Men

 
 
Have I mentioned recently how hard it is to be a moden man? I think I probably have; between setting up your online dating profile and trying to talk to women there's plenty of ways to go wrong. I recently gave you some advice on dressing like an adult, but what happens when the shops only sell ridiculous clothes? What are you supposed to do now? Lubricate your legs and slide on a pair skinny jeans? I don't know about you, but that's not something I'd want to do.

There are currently about 10 shops from which it is possible to buy menswear (there may be more, but I don't care) and I am going to look at each in some detail in an attempt to help you find the shop which is right for you, this summer.
 

American Apparel

Now don't get me wrong, I like American Apparel. If I had money, I'd probably buy some of their clothes, yet they might be the biggest sinner when it comes to odd modelling or "oddelling" as I like to call it. Gaunt spectral-type men with beards and a surprised expression, model the latest lines of pastel shaded grandad shirts. I didn't even know what a grandad shirt was until I started writing this. Had to look it up.

[caption id="attachment_3051" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="20x20=400. That's 400 ways to look like a bell-end."][/caption]

 

Topman

As a student, Topman was my bread and butter. If I needed any of the essentials (some colourful and constrictingly tight underwear, or a belt with piano keys on) I'd pop down to my local Topman and spend around £13.50.

Now, though, the only people who can pull off Topman clothes are those who have recently woken from a coma and think it's still 1986. Or the band "Hurts".

[caption id="attachment_3052" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Mustard is SO in this year."][/caption]
 

Asos

I don't know much about Asos, other than last year my flatmate bought a jumper from Asos that made him look like he was being born. As a result, I've tended to steer clear, which is probably a good thing, judging by this image on their homepage which made me want to destroy everything.

[caption id="attachment_3053" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="No I do not fancy a dip."][/caption]

Apparently hats are really in this year. Yeah? Well I hope we have an unusually windy summer and they blow into whatever canal it is on which you're rowing ironically.

 

Urban Outfitters

I'm really losing the will to live with his list now, just look. Look at the hat. Am I supposed to wear a hat now, to be fashionable? Who decreed this? Was there a memo? I hate everything. Like the blazer though, I bet it's £100,000.

[caption id="attachment_3054" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="I give up"][/caption]
 

French Connection

My favourite type of oddel (odd model, keep up) is the type with a massive beard. For me, the inclusion of the beard raises some important questions: Is the beard for sale? Can I add the beard to my basket? If I buy the outfit without the beard, do I get a discount? Will the clothes look good on me despite the fact that I don't have the facial hair of a grizzled sea captain? I fear that the answer to all of these questions might be "no."

[caption id="attachment_3055" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Vincent Van Gogh modelling chinos and a hat"][/caption]
 

H&M

Colourful trousers.

COLOURFUL TROUSERS.
 

Republic

Oh hey yeah I'm just scratching my head

Republic used to be respectable, stocking a few surf brands and having the odd sale. What happened to you, Republic? Now it's all polo shirts and jogging bottoms, and shorts with the fly on the SIDE for those of us who don't want to be made to CONFORM to society's BOURGEOIS demands that the FLY should always have to go on the FRONT. I'm crazy, you can't tell me what to do man

 

River Island

[caption id="attachment_3058" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The worst of them all"][/caption]

Oh, River Island, with your name of two oddly opposing nouns, like "Pencil Pen" or "Badger Wildebeest". I bought a hoodie from you once, it was blue and had white tassles. I wore it every day except Saturdays which is when I would wash it.

But now, River Island, you have betrayed me for a grinning twat in a wicker hat and his hands in his pockets.
 

Gap

I quite like Gap, you should all shop at Gap. Or Ebay, there's some amusing clothes there.

 

The perils of eating

 
 
Hi, I’m Kate and I write How Not To Draw. I like to draw (despite the title) and I’m apparently a bit odd, so I’m going to write for you about the perils of eating.
I’ll admit, if there’s one thing I’m very, very OCD about, it’s food. There is SO MUCH that can go wrong with food. I love the stuff, I do, I can eat and eat until the cows come home, and then I’ll roast them and eat them with gravy too. But let me tell you 10 things that can – AND DO –go wrong with food.
 

1. Burnt food.

Food is a bitch. It will spend what seems like forever being in that slightly raw, if-you-eat-me-you-might-die stage, and the minute you turn up the heat, or turn your back for a second, it will skip right through the tasty stage of being cooked and go straight to the tastes-like-soot, setting off the smoke detector stage. Bacon and bread are the worst culprits, and yet still the tastiest. DAMN YOU.

 

2. Edge-food.

Ok, I’ve since realised that this is NOT JUST SPECIFIC TO ME, so bear with me while I explain. Edge-food, a phenomenon discovered by me, is the BANE OF ALL SOCIETY. Edge-food is wrong, and the cheapest food manufacturers use this to their advantage, because edge-food is cheap. Edge-food is all the stuff you don’t want: that bit of melon next to the skin that is harder than a boot; the white bits on an orange that feel a bit like you’re eating string; and of course, CRUST. Yes, edge-food is always there, waiting of the periphery of something tasty, telling you to come closer, closer, until it’s sucked you into its trap where everything tastes of feet and has the texture of a cowpat. I hate you, edge-food.

 

3. Ugly food.

It just sucks that ugly food is almost ALWAYS tasty food. When you go on a date, there is the perpetual struggle between enjoying your meal and not coming across as a messy, sauce-faced thicko. You look down at the menu: spaghetti bolognaise – gives you the options of twirling for hours because you swear some Italian git has greased your fork and it won’t stay on; sucking up strands and spraying pasta juice all over your face and looking like a toddler; or cutting it up, and again looking like a toddler. Or maybe the chicken kiev – but then you imagine cutting into it and garlic butter spurting into your eye and dribbling down your chin. Not sexy. So you go for the seafood, everyone loves seafood… Until you fire a particularly stubborn mussel down your date’s nice white shirt. FOOD DOES NOT WANT YOU TO FIND LOVE.

 

4. Finger food.

Whoever designed finger food was evil. Pure evil. It is almost always covered in some kind of goo – think ribs, chocolate éclairs, chicken satay sticks… you always come away from a canapé party feeling like you’ve been fingerpainting with condiments. Depending on the party, you may have been, but food is supposed to make you happy, not make you feel like a messy child in need of a good bath. And the worst of all is when the host fails to provide napkins, leaving you to lick your fingers clean, as if that renders you unsticky for the rest of the night, shaking hands with other sticky people. Bleh.

 

5. Holiday food.

You surely must have experienced the phenomenon of holiday food. Your mum/dad/evil stepmother starts to stockpile food somewhere, and you start to notice it has different properties to normal food: it’s all oddly festive, or themed, or oddly tiny in proportion to normal things (tiny bottles of alcohol, massive boxes of biscuits) and you realise that the holiday food is here to stay. However, holiday food is NEVER TO BE EATEN. (until the holiday in question, that is). This pile of festive food will sit, like a harvest tribute, for as long as it takes for you to crave Christmas pudding so bad you think you need to go to rehab. And then it will come out, and be a massive anti-climax. Bah.

 

6. Effort food.

Many of the good foods in this world – roast dinners, cupcakes, soup – are the most time-consuming. Yes, you can buy these things in shops and restaurants, but it’s never the same, is it? The thing is, if you crave anything that takes more than half an hour to make, you just have to ignore it. Of course, the cravings only get worse, until you end up either just getting off your ass and doing it, or trying to stifle the craving with more food. Either way you get fat. No fair.

 

7. School/University/Work food.

Always, always, always the worst food you will ever eat. Regardless of whether you pay enough for your education to raise a million African children or not, you will always get the same processed, breaded and pathetic-looking meat, accompanied with beans and some kind of potatoey accompaniment. In the last term at university, I have had enough varieties of shaped potato to make a whole episode of Sesame Street.
This paragraph was brought to you by the spherical spud.

 

8. TV food.

Before the advent of TV chefs and that M&S advert, it wasn’t so bad; everything looked at least a little bit real. Now we’re too busy drooling over Nigella’s sexy soufflés and Jamie’s herd of babies to notice that pretty much 60% of their meals are impossible, and most of the time you only realise this half-way through a recipe which suddenly calls for either an ingredient like Himalayan yak mucus or a small army of bowls which you just don’t have. Heston Blumenthal is the worst culprit, narrating his cooking as if you’re supposed to follow along, then casually dropping in sentences like ‘now, pop it in your centrifuge…’ Pure evil. Pure, tasty evil.

 

9. Sneaky food.

Like a ninja in an invisibility cloak, you don’t even realise this food is happening to you until you look to your side and see 15 empty crisp packets and the remains of a hog roast. This is the equivalent of amnesia in the culinary world; you wake up two hours later to find that you’ve gained 8 pounds and all your friends have left you for someone less inclined to eat everything in the cupboard.

 

10. Health food

Diet food will deceive you with its promise of 50% less calories (for a start, it should be ‘fewer’… Grumble grumble Grammar Nazi grumble) when really, it means 50% less food and 100% less taste! YUM! Another problem with health food is that it’s pretty much rabbit food and bird seed, just cleverly repackaged to appeal to humans with the same amount of brain. Plus it tastes like floor.

Royal Wedding: The Verdict

 
 
Like the BBC has Nicholas Witchell, OYMT now has its very own Royal Correspondent! Except younger and less ginger. It's his first piece for us, so welcome, Daniel.

Catch the royal wedding? No? You spent your bank holiday drinking cider from the bottle and eventually passing out drunk in your neighbour’s back garden in the middle of the afternoon while a group of youths used you as a goal-post, eh? I envy you. Here’s what you missed:
 
 

Kate Middleton is brilliant.

Yeah, Kate Middleton looked really nice. If you didn’t see her dress, it was lacy and elegant, like a proper princess. Clearly she felt it, as all the way through there was never a hint that she was anything short of confident and collected. This was in stark contrast to Prince Harry who seemed nervous and fidgety all the way through; swaying backwards and forwards with his eyes darting around the place. At one point I thought Prince Charles was going to pop up with his Game Boy to keep him distracted.
 
 

What the eff did Beatrice have on her head?

In an act of what can only be described as PURE ATTENTION SEEKING, Princess Beatrice was seated in the congregation with some species of crustacean on her head. It appeared she’d been stealing style tips from Lady GaGa. If she really wanted to outstage the bride she should have arrived at Westminster Abbey in a giant egg, climbed out wearing a meat dress and stuck a telephone on her head (she already has the scary giant eyes from the Bad Romance video).
 
 

James Middleton.

As James Middleton gave his reading during the ceremony, homosexualists all over the country gave a sigh of relief at the sight of some fresh meat. Just hours afterwards, the first auto-suggestion Google gave when searching his name was already “James Middleton gay”. While there is no actual evidence to suggest he does play polo for the other team (or whatever it is posh people do), let’s check his credentials:

He designs cakes for a living.
His date to the wedding was HIS MOTHER.
He is literally “quite fit”.
He was seen dancing drunkenly to Born This Way at the reception, holding extended eye contact with the same guy all night before going home with someone else.

OK, that last one may be fictional.
 
 

The bit where he couldn’t get the ring on properly.

Kate was a right sweaty Betty at the ceremony, to the point where Prince William had to SQUISH HER FINGER just to get the ring on her finger in the first place. Embarrassing for all concerned.
 
 

Kimberley Walsh wanted an invite.

“I’ve met Prince Charles a few times so it’s a shame I didn’t get an invite- I’ll have to settle for watching it at home”.

LOLZZZZZ.
 
 

People who suddenly think they are able to read lips.

If you were watching the wedding in a group, I can guarantee one of the people around will have at one point shouted “DID YOU SEE THAT- HE JUST SAID SHE LOOKS BEAUTIFUL” or “I JUST READ HIS LIPS AND HE SAID HE CAN’T WAIT TO SPEND THE REST OF HIS LIFE WITH HER”. To all those people who, just in time for the royal wedding, suddenly developed the skill of lip-reading: get a grip. Nobody knows what he was saying to her when the microphones were off. It could have been “smile for the cameras you miserable bitch” as easily as “tonight I am going to absolutely destroy you. I mean it”. Personally, I pray it was the latter.
 

 
 

The balcony kiss.

I must admit that this was my first royal wedding, so I was a bit disturbed by the fact the happy couple had to get a carriage all the way over to Buckingham Palace to do have the first kiss as man and wife on a balcony in front of the Royal Family who are largely pensioners. Thankfully, it was a nice kiss and didn’t go on all day like Liza Minelli and David Gest. Probably for the best really, the last thing you need as you kiss your bride for the first time is Prince Philip muttering “get stuck in, my son” in your ear.
 
 

Pippa Middleton going home with Prince Harry.

You just know it happened, don’t you? You just know. GET IN THERE, HARRY.

How to survive an animal attack.

 
 
I'm not really the fighting type, but if provoked I can curl up into a pretty intimidating ball. Animals, on the other hand, can fly off the handle without warning and attack each other (and humans) with reckless abandonment. So what should you do if an animal attacks you? Do you do the ball thing? No, you fight back with all your knowledge of animal-fight-skills, learned from the internet.

Please note that this article does not condone unprovoked violence against animals, and only sanctions the use of force when being attacked, or when it's slept with your missus or something.

 

Shark

The notion of beating a shark in pitched battle has been around for decades, with the film "Jaws" bringing shark-fighting to the mainstream. But for those of us who don't have a gas canister with which to explode the shark, the accepted advice was always to boff the attacker on the nose, thus stunning it enough to forget to eat you.

But this is an urban myth, according to shark-fighting experts who say that the best place to whack a shark, if you're still lucid enough to aim,  are its eyes or gills. If you are unable to reach the eyes or gills, splash its face as much as possible, as the salt water would really sting.


 

Bee

Bees. Aren't they adorable? With their fat little bodies and tiny physics-defying wings, they're relaxing to observe as they bumble around the garden and you recline in a deckchair. But occasionally, if they're having a bad monday, or are Africanised Honey Bees, they might form a swarm and chase after you. If this happens, I've found some good advice on how to fight them off.

"RUN away quickly. Do not stop to help others. However, small children and the disabled may need some assistance."

Though maybe not the fighting talk you'd expect, apparently this is the best way to deal with an Africanized Honey Bee attack. The rest of that helpful article, explains how if being chased by angry bees, run. Run. Leap up from your deckchair, drop your issue of Homes and Gardens and run as fast as you can with your shirt over your head.

 

Hedgehog

Just walk away. Hedgehogs might be intimidatingly spiky, but they are also slow and incredibly short. This is one particular battle you can win by not doing much. I'm not really sure why I included this particular animal attack in the list, to be honest, but I couldn't find any details on how to fight off a rhinoceros so it had to do.

 

Bear

If worried that a bear might be about to attack, stand incredibly still. The bear will then come towards you, but you must remain stationary. Once the bear is close enough to touch, in one smooth motion, leap onto the animal's back. Bears are notoriously inflexible, and while he might try to turn his head far enough to bite you, or swing a paw around his back to swipe you, he will be unable to reach and you shall be safe. That said, if your ride looks like he's about to rub his back up against a tree, hop off and peg it.

 

 

Monkey

This should be fairly easy, since monkeys are essentially the size of human children. Hold out your hand and grab the attacking monkey's head. He will swing his little paws, but since you have the superior reach, the monkey will eventually grow tired and you shall be victorious. He will then let you keep him on your shoulder which would be adorable.

 

Crocodile

When in any kind of terrain where a crocodile attack is possible, for example wading in The Nile, or at Chester Zoo, be sure to carry a large wooden oar around with you at all times. Wait for the crocodile to open its jaws wide, before inserting the oar into the mouth, thus wedging it open. Not only will the crocodile be unable to close its mouth around you, but if you do find yourself accidentally inside its jaws, you should be able to just slide back out again.



 

Any kind of bird

If you should find yourself outside, perhaps clutching a pasty or some kind of baked, meat-filled snack, you're leaving yourself open to one of the most brutal animal attacks there is.

To prevent the bird from attacking, you must wave your arms about ferociously, not only to surprise the bird, but to fling whatever comestible it was that attracted them in the first place, as far from you as possible. This will distract the bird and give you valuable seconds to make good your escape. Do not attempt to reclaim the snack.

Fun fact: Alfred Hitchcock based his 1963 classic "The Birds" on an afternoon he'd had in Brighton when a bird stole one of his chips and then pooed on his shoulder.