To be bedecked in Yoruba attire

The Chinese are coming too

Yesterday, it occurred to me that it might be a clever idea to make an appearance on my birthday dressed in something different and traditional. So, I went online, searching for “Nigerian clothes shops near me.” You can buy many things online, but this requires visiting a clothing store.

I could have gone to Bolton, about 18 km away, but you needed a booking, and what was displayed on their website seemed like it might be a wasted journey. Other websites or online presences suggest many still have not fully appreciated the need for a useful online presence.

Strangely, the Chinese are also involved, mass-producing African clothes in China, but none of the shipping would arrive until after Christmas. That is as widespread as you could get on Amazon. Besides, heaven forfend you get something and find it so ill-fitting that the only person you can call is a ghostbuster.

Ethnic Moston Lane appears

Refining my search a few times did not lead to better guidance, but one area kept coming up: Moston Lane, Moston, just about 5 km from Manchester city centre. Everything African, or specifically Nigerian, seemed to be dotted along the lane like an ethnic suburb, with the sounds, smells, and sights of a faraway land.

Having never been that way before, even after almost 12 years of living in Manchester, getting a bus there seemed a bit adventurous. I was not going to count 22 stops to my destination. It was more sensible to take a taxi. The driver was a chatterbox and on his way to the mosque in Moston. What a coincidence.

When I got off, I headed to the address of the shop I had found from my Google search. The address was a barber's shop; I couldn’t see any clothes on display. One disappointment, but I felt I was on the right street for what I needed.

Dressed without distress

About six doors down, there was a shop full of dresses, shoes, and fashion accessories. It was also a tailor's shop. I stepped in, and the proprietor, sitting at her sewing machine, asked what I was looking for. There was plenty of material on the shelves, but asking a tailor to create something bespoke this close to Christmas would likely lead to disappointment.

She said she had ready-to-wear costumes: bùbá (top tunic), ṣòkòto (drawstring trousers), agbádá (billowing top gown), and fìlà (cap). That set makes a complete outfit, called Yoruba attire.

I was shown three complete, ready-to-wear sets. I chose one and asked for the price, which at first seemed steep, but I don’t think I had much choice. With a matching cap, I scored a good find.

We started speaking in English, then switched to Yoruba. Certain inflexions from me betrayed a foreign accent, but I held my own enough to be praised for my Yoruba fluency.

She was inquisitive to the point of interrogation: my interests, women, sex life, children, and much more. But what can you reveal to a prophetess of a white garment church before you’re seen as on the road to perdition?

Proposed friendship from here on

Her persuasive manner left you unprepared, and next, she showed me a restaurant. I paid for something to take away while I settled on pounded yams and ẹ̀gúsí stew. I returned to her shop to find her trying to fix a gaudy sequined dress so flashy it was an eyesore.

The woman who needed the dress came in, and I could have suggested she find something better than trying to squeeze into this corset that belonged to a burlesque troupe. I even helped attach the clips at the back of the blouse-cum-corset. Some jobs you should avoid, even on a slow day.

She gave me directions to a bakery where I bought two loaves straight from the oven. However, the traffic into town, which was gridlocked that evening, meant the loaves were cool by the time I reached home. We exchanged numbers, and she called. I might return to Moston Lane, but it cannot become a regular haunt.

Laundered to distress by Laundryheap

Bewitched by convenience

Their unique selling proposition was more than just attractive but extremely convenient considering the circumstances, for the nearest dry cleaner to me was almost a kilometre away, somewhat expensive, sometimes delivering poor quality service and most of all, I had to take my laundry to them and had to given them at least three days for me to pick up my stuff.

Laundryheap was convenience wrapped up in an online portal with a 24-hour turnaround allowing for their couriers to do a door-laundry-door pick-up and delivery, as long as I had a credit card they could charge once the job was done. They had been my drycleaners since July 2016.

I was sold on the 24 hours spiel, it was irresistibly perfect for my situation.

Those bags were big and I filled two of them.

I probably used them 3 or 4 times a year with my laundry bill averaging £200 to £250 per service. Suits, jackets, shirts, ties, cravats, overcoats, trousers and then shorts were what I got them to do. However, the pandemic has meant I have not used formal wear that much, that I have only utilised the service the last two Decembers and this November.

That’s a light delivery

This last time was an ordeal that totally deviated from the kind of service I was accustomed to, it felt like they were deliberately trying to lose my custom, and whatever might have informed that performance, has not been properly explained to me.

On Wednesday, I put in a request for a collection and gathered my clothes in two piles of inventories according to the item and separated them into bags labelled ‘Dryclean’ and ‘Wash & Iron’, the courier arrived towards the later part of the pick-up window and all I had to do was wait until the next day.

The delivery window came just within the 24 hours of the collection, I received a bag and some hangers, the volume and lightness meant something was missing. I had seen from the billing that some things were drycleaned and some were washed & ironed, meaning they did process the two bags of clothes, the bigger shock was I had 20 items of clothing returned out of 58 items collected the previous day.

Good thing I did an itemisation of clothing to be collected, would have to take pictures of labels too?

Make pictures of words

Missing from the delivery was 3 jackets, 5 2-piece suits, all 9 cravats, the overcoat that did not belong to me, and all my shirts, 20 of them. So, I contacted the chat line which consisted of named but faceless bots hosted in Bangalore, when my clothes were dry cleaned on location in Longsight, just 3 kilometres away.

As they had no phone number to call, I was left to type out details of my complaint and missing items that they were to relay to another team and that might eventually reach the facilities or logistics team at Longsight. Each interaction towards finding my clothes was initiated by me, there was no initiative on their part to keep me updated on the progress of finding my clothes, I was fobbed off stock responses, ‘Rest assured, we are working hard to ensure you things are found by our team.’ And anything else to that effect.

Then I was even offered a £10.70 compensation voucher for my inconvenience as they asked for particular details about my missing items to help them locate where they might be. I found myself exercising powers of recall you never have to use when using a laundry service with the hope that one particular description might stand out enough to lead whoever was looking to a pile of clothes belonging to one person, inadvertently missed in the logistics processing.

Item Type:
Brand/label:
Colour/pattern/design:
Size (if relevant):
Any other distinguishing features:

Size and colour, I could generally remember, brands for my suits I could except for the bespoke ones, the jackets I mostly got from a catalogue apart from one, I never really checked to see what label it had apart from knowing one was 4 sizes smaller belonging to a friend, another 2 sizes smaller, belonging to Brian, the shirts? God help me.

Now, the hours were days

Soon, I got a message my clothes had been found, but the updated billing did not reflect the reality of what I was expecting, I had to question the inventory as they scheduled the delivery for Friday night between 19:00 and 22:00, only to inform me that due to some unforeseen circumstances, the delivery had been postponed to Saturday for the same window. By then, I had been billed fully.

My distress was just compounded by the fact that they were not proactive or prompt with telling of the changes in planned arrangements. It would have assuaged my angst if someone just called me, that never happened. A few minutes to the Saturday window of delivery, it was postponed to Monday. I had given up on chasing them and was looking at the legal options for corporate theft and compensation.

Thank you very much

This evening, I received a message that I was at the end of a 20 deep queue of delivery stops, then it changed to someone expecting to get to my door in 19 minutes. Just 121 hours after what was supposed to be a service touted as “Laundry & Dry Cleaning to your home in 24 hours” my clothes arrived. I simply counted them and put them away. If any are damaged through handling, I cannot care less or even more.

Whilst the likelihood of using Laundryheap again is remote to totally unlikely, if they have no competition, it might come into consideration. However, a £10.70 compensation for an order that I paid over £310 for and was not delivered on time, is an insult more than derisory. I could fully afford my laundry bill; I did not choose them for charitable or humanitarian reasons to my account. The service is what I paid for; the compensation is like throwing pennies at me.

We are done, for now

What is a 3% compensation for the angst and distress of possibly losing your clothes? Conceptually, Laundryheap might be a useful service, I have my doubts about the heart and soul of the owners being nearer the customer than their profits.

For that, I would be seeking out all sites that provide review services for Laundryheap to award 1-star for customer service and support, even if the other part of the equation can easily get a 4-star rating. They were let down by the service and when it comes to personal items like clothing, it is those little things that become the end of custom and the loss of recommendations. In Laundryheap, which did so well for a while, I am quite sorely unimpressed and totally disappointed.

We are poor observers of extreme fashion

In retrospect

I cannot count the number of times that Brian and I have looked back suddenly, our faces dripping with shock at the things we have just seen. Obviously, we risked being labelled sententious discussing this subject, but as I opined to him yesterday, here we are not attracted to ladies and forced to take a second look.

Maybe it is a case of not having a mirror to look at before stepping out of the home, courageous and daring it might be, careless and carefree in other cases, we cannot tell. We cannot and should not judge anyone by their dresses, but we cannot ignore those who have worn clothes too short that every few steps they are struggling to pull them down to cover their modesty, something so completely avoidable if they had done a second take at home.

Skirting the issue

Yesterday, in what was generally a beautiful dress, it did not have enough fabric on the upper body that her assets were spilling out, I guess it had become too much for her to care anymore, she just let it go and flow. We were not ogling but definitely were almost scandalised, it is each to their own.

As we walked through the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront after shopping, we were afflicted and I use that word generously, by the glowing underside of gluteus maximus, the buttocks. She was wearing pants so hot they would not have been suitable for a bikini and here we were nowhere near the seaside and by the shoes she was wearing, she was not coming from there either.

In perspective

It reminded me of the dictum I share about blogging, to have the sense of a seamstress making a good skirt; it should be long enough to cover the detail and short enough to keep the interest, that is the aesthetic after which the rules unwritten and unspoken as they may be have been broken.

Yet, I veer into the dangerous territory of regulating apparel where no one can win, probably what I need is never to be offended regardless of what I see and just because of that one should not lose the freedom to comment without condemning.

Decency is a construct of personal tastes in the purview of public observation, from one perspective there is a likelihood the ladies to have paid much attention to this matter, on another, maybe they did my exertions here are just agitations over causes that have chosen their own representative path. Good for them.

Thought Picnic: My continual outrage at sagging trousers

Redefining the man

Now, I ask you to read this without prejudice and a modicum of seriousness despite the possibility of being carried away with the imaginations of your mind.

It was on a television series that a lady’s thoughts were put to sound when after a pleasurable session, the man whose sexual prowess she praised got up and walked into the bathroom revealing what she thought in comparison was a 50-year old butt on a man with the performance of someone half his age.

You only have to look at the Michelangelo’s David to see what the form is, the function, however, is open to interpretation or exploration. [Italian Renaissance Art]

Rounded at least

As I have written many times before, nothing looks as revolting as a lack of care to the backside usually due to unfashionable half-exposure revealing unsightly underwear on a backside that is neither comely nor interesting.

The buttocks (singular: buttock) are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. [Wikipedia]

The definition above suggests the backside is “two rounded portions of the anatomy”, I would lay emphasis on rounded which should not need definition.

Pants down dawdle

Obviously, no man can successfully answer the question, “How does my butt look in this?” There is no smart, stupid or indifferent answer that would not put you in the possible collision course with a flying brick.

That is not to say whether rounded or not, I want to see your trousers sagging and worse still, as a result of the low-hung apparel, the wearer presents in a group of many of that ilk, the gait of a badelynge of ducks. It is so ungamely that when they run, you almost expect to hear them quack, yet, I’ll rather watch wild ducks paddling in the village pond.

Why on earth these people cannot pull their trousers up escapes me because it is nothing to do with length or fitting, because in most cases they have rolled up the trouser leg.

This is not fashion

There is no positive validation in this sagging trouser culture because it apparently emerged from the US prison system where the incarcerated were not issued with belts for their ill-fitting clothes. This has since entered popular culture and with it, we have watched the many fashion suicides that traipse our streets in classless abandon.

BBC – In pictures: Sagging Pants

You can call me old-fashioned, in fact, I do not care for what I am called, and as much as everyone is free to appear as they like either by outraging public decency or respectfully in cognisant of presentation and demeanour in the public space, let us not be in any discord about who automatically earns respect and essential courtesy.

Subjectively, if not subliminally, first impressions are first impressions are first impressions, go as you mean to be acknowledged.

Thought Picnic: The old-fashioned that works

From before time

There are traditional old-fashioned things that still matter and allow for the utmost courtesies and respect to be dispensed without reluctance.

As a man, my tastes are neither ostentatious nor vulgar, I am not given to trendy fads or trends, and I stick to the tried and tested things.

Politeness and courtesy are rarely reciprocated with rudeness, be it in speech or in writing, such comportment mellows the aggressive or the unfriendly; it costs nothing but it can do a lot.

Formal is normal

When attending anything remotely business-like, I always err on the side of being formal. Appearance should not be the judge of character or personality, but it always offers the first impression that could determine the tone and tenor of engagement.

Many times, I have seen people raise their game and put up the very best of manners when approached by the formal and sophisticated, though at the same time understated.

I have seen the readiness to help and respond to an enquiry besides the compliments that come with appreciating that a one has taken the time to turn out well and look the part that conveys an air of good bearing, self-assuredness and confidence.

First impressions

In Latin, we are told, Barba non facit philosophum - A beard does not constitute a philosopher, but the beard is a first impression that makes one approach to determine if a philosopher has been encountered. The variant in common parlance is “The clothes do not make the man,” but the clothes may create enough interest to find out about the man.

A man must needs have substance to back up the appearance; the clothes remove some of the prejudicial assessment that might accompany first interactions. No doubt, people like to be pleasantly surprised just as they do not want to be shocked, but if there is a way to prevent the unnecessary sway of emotions that could elicit either praise or rebuke, that is the better part of valour.

If you can, do it well. Work on both the substance and the appearance and do not leave any to chance or sloppiness. It works for me all the time.

Thought Picnic: How Do They Launder Demons?

You cannot make this up

Pat Robertson the American Televangelist says the darndest things that makes people think he had been quaffing psychedelic drugs in place of breathing air for oxygen.

It is then not surprising that he then attracts even the most unspeakably bizarre questions to his 700 Club show, his responses are sometimes impossible to watch creating a cringe-worthy sense of unease and queasiness that leaves you all so queer.

Recently, he had to answer a question about second-hand clothes being possibly inhabited by demons, of course, the idea was not originally his, but by the time he provided anecdotal evidence and the additional commentary, he as good as said clothes can be the residual habitation of demons and something to the effect that demons can reside in inanimate objects.

Get me a Demons for Dummies manual

Now, I am no expert in demonology or the exegesis of exorcism, nor would I suggest that I fully appreciate the manifestations or fantasy of the paranormal that excites the Pentecostal folk to the point that they handle spiritual matters with unusually physical vigour that a typical WWF fixture will not have as much movement or entertainment value.

However, the problem arises when agnosticism takes the place of disbelief; the seed of the questionable has been sown in a mind that conjures much vivid imagination and imagery.

As I was checking out of my hotel yesterday, I usually leave some of my stuff at the hotel over the weekend which means one has to pack wisely.

Demon reproduction

I use the laundry services of the hotel and so imagine my surprise when it looked like I had another suit in the wardrobe that had returned with my clothes some 3 days before.

Yes, a small-sized Burton’s suit had mistakenly been carted back to me and had dissipated its life amongst my clothes for days unbeknownst to me because my laundry is usually returned to my room when I am out. I just assumed everything was fine.

Back to Pat Robertson’s drug-addled theory of demonology and demon estate management you begin to wonder whose demons are cavorting with other demons and whether those I tolerate have been copulating with those of the stranger’s suit – I can’t go on, but you get the drift.

Some people need to be taken off television with immediate effect, I can’t remember if I said my prayers – over the clothes.

Incredible India: Selling rags as ermine

Tales to tell

There are many stories to tell of the past day, all bringing some perspective of things in India as a foreigner might experience them.

Friday was a half-day, we covered a topic I was quite familiar with, afterwards I wondered if we had just breezed through something we could have spent more time on, but it did not appear I could be as engaged. I was also beginning to feel that I needed to get out to see a bit of New Delhi, the triangle of hotel, training centre and church hardly offered the picture that makes for Incredible India.

However, in the same vein, one of the elements of my kind of tourism is to understand the people, appreciate how they live and maybe comment on the similarities and differences with my experiences and other observations.

Masks are needed

Having left on the bus after lunch, I got to the hotel literally exhausted; I wanted to get a nap which I did. Then it was time to go to the tailors to fit out the suits being made for me. When in Asia, one must always avail oneself of the luxury of bespoke tailoring with quality materials at a fraction of prices at home.

Since we were going by auto rickshaw, I decided it was wise to get a face mask, from a surgical perspective, they are disposal but in reality, they are reusable. I got a few just in case.

Pressed to dress

As we got to the tailor’s time was wasted on trying to sell us other stuff we did not need; I was firm in my rejection of this distraction asking him to get the suits over for our fitting as there were 2 of us there for the purpose.

We probably spent another 15 minutes there before our urgency made the suits appear, meanwhile I sat with my palm to my forehead and one of the ladies in the shop said it was a bad omen. It was frustrating enough not to care about cultural differences with their lackadaisical attitude to customer service.

For all the luxury in the shop, there was no changing room, the lady attendants had to leave the shop for us to change and check the fit of the clothes.

Not my stripes

The moment I saw my suit I knew it was not the material I had ordered for many reasons. I most wear pin-stripe suits but have never ever liked double pin-stripes of different colours. No matter how bad the lighting was, there was no way I would have missed the second pin-stripe that became obvious on sighting my suit.

I was forcefully vehement enough about it but to insult me the more, the tailor suggested I order another suit to the material I really wanted. Now, my colleagues thought the suit was suits me, maybe it does – it is not all that bad, it is just that it would not have been my choice in so many innumerable instances.

To reinforce the fact that the material had been changed, the receipt booklet was full of samples of cloth for other orders but nothing was ever pinned to my receipt in the book. The simple lesson is, if ordering a bespoke suit from material, always ask for a sample to keep and later compare if disputes arise.

My trainer told me there have been many instances of switching material and underhand practices by tailors trainees have visited, he suggested we ply more sophisticated outlets like Raymonds.

Not ermine by far

This evening I went to pick up my suit and once again, the hard sell started, I wasn’t playing ball as I had my suits packaged with two pairs of trousers as one should always do when buying suits.

A new consignment of material had arrived and it all still in the wrappings, the tailor could not resist another pitch when he suggested he had material very much like my stripped trousers. As he laid the cloth on the counter, my eye caught the original factory markings in chalk-ish ink, as I tried to read the markings the lady assistant began to fluff the cloth in order to conceal the markings.

I allowed her to do her thing as I was being told it was the best material on the market, then, I reach for the side where the markings were, obviously, they could not grab the cloth from me when I turned it over and it read – Polyester & Nylon – I suppose those materials have a way of acting like Kashmir to the eye, to the touch and to the hearing of the trader’s spiel.

Knowledge is power

On seeing the label, I just stepped back and said to my colleague, we had to leave. The tailor also realised I had gained knowledge as he then asked if the material was saleable and I said it could be as we agreed that everyone has their notion of quality – the truth being, quality is not all that it is sold out to be.

Bales of material on the shelves have already had the factory markings cut off, since it is branded in the end of the roll of cloth, the unwitting customer left to read the braided counterfeit markings the line the edges of the cloth pretending to something it is not.

Once again, a bargain in a backwater with the story that they also do it for ambassadors does not mean ambassadors know much about quality material and you are soon sucked into a tale of satisfied customers lured by the vicious circle of word-of-mouth to the confidence trickster’s lair – the silver tongue of selling rags as ermine continues to rake in the bucks, many none the wiser of the fact they have been had.

My consolation, it looks good, it is bespoke and I am not a Nigerian politician dressed up to the nines in every luxury label bought on stolen money.

Clothes line or clothes nurse

Not trendy but enduring fashion

Working in the Netherlands as a technical consultant sometimes has me as probably the best formally dressed man in any office in the land.

I would not be absent in a 1950s London street, bowler hat, pocket square matching tie, brogues or better, umbrella and the Daily Telegraph under my arm.

However, the Western Europeans summers does make one suffer, the high humidity, something strangely absent from the area of the Tropics I grew up in means one has to dress a lot lighter with cropped sleeves, new wool suits and sometimes the anathema of a missing under-vest.

There is no point secreting manly pheromones in the office; that is no place to exact the full penalty for being attractive or being attracted to others - Perish the thought!

The clothes nurse

Clothes can tell a few tales and now they are being made to monitor your health through sweat for acidity, salinity and perspiration.

This technology should find application in recuperating patients, the chronically ill or injured athletes, but there is a marketing opportunity to a demographic of health freaks who would be pleased to know just that little bit more to develop a hypochondriac complex.

When these monitors begin to gather data and this data gets transmitted in such a way that it can be intercepted, it becomes a problem - it would be easy to see who is vulnerable and probably take advantage of that person - someone about to have a fit or a heart attack might just have that aggravated by the fact that an onlooker snoop knows just when to pounce.

The extension of this technology would be when it becomes reactive - a wearer begins to choke on something and the clothes administer the Heimlich Manoeuvre - the clothes malfunction and one is dangling from a clothes line - Now, what is the haute couture for clothes that nurse you?