Trousers are something you can deal with when you dont
have a drink to start the day. This morning I put three pairs
of them in the washing machine. Theres the pair of black Hugo Boss numbers
that I wore for a fortnight when I went by train across Spain and carried on wearing
them when I was in Ibiza because I had forgotten to pack a spare pair. I
reckoned I could have called to them and they would have got up from the side
of the bed in my Sant Antoni apartment and followed me home to Meadow Lane. But
I have to say theyve washed beautifully and retained the sheen that comes
with paying a hundred Euros for a pair of pants. Then there
are the Marks and Spencer blue cords. Theyre a bit out of date now because
I remember Mick Jagger wearing these kind of elephant strides and he must be a
hundred years old by now. And finally there are the muted
grey Wrangler jeans. They dont wash so well and look a bit fluffy round
the turn-up department. All of them seem to me to have
got longer, but I suppose the truth is that Im shrinking. You know that
T.S. Eliot thing from the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock about growing old and
wearing the bottoms of your trousers rolled. Mind you,
I still dare to eat a peach. Anyway the three pairs are
hanging on a sort of indoor washing line my sister gave me. There are socks and
underpants there too, but thats another shorts story and another full wash
on number 10, whatever that means. The weather just isnt
up to me putting all this stuff on the washing line and Ill have to see
if drying indoors is an option. Oh, how I remember being able to put washing on
the line on the roof of an apartment block in San Antonio. Ten minutes later,
before you could even manage just the one, it was all dry and gleaming and you
should count this as a blessing if you live there. It means you dont have
to drink while you wait for your washing to dry. I have to think about soot coming
down chimneys, never mind contemplating white slacks. A
friend of mine has bought an apartment in Ibiza and he reckons it means you dont
have to take so much luggage when you go because you take enough shirts and trolleys
to last a week and then wash them. That assumes you have a washing machine in
your apartment, of course, mind there are laundrettes in Sant Antoni where you
can have a drink and a smoke while you watch your dressing gown go round and round.
That assumes you bothered to take a dressing gown with you on your holidays and
that sounds a bit like excess baggage to me. Mondays should
be washing day and there used to be a pride among neighbours about who had the
cleanest shirts on the line. Its where soap operas got their name, because
Daz or Omo sponsored the programmes, and whatever happened to that brand name?
I can tell you. Its still on sale in Turkey because it doesnt mean
you are a shirt lifter when you put the box in your window. It allegedly stands
for Old Man Out, however if you put the box upside down in your window
it can mean something else altogether and implies you are male and in your altogethers. I
found two fifty Euro notes in the back pocket of the Hugo Boss kecks (Im
seeing how many colloquial words I can come up with for trousers) and I am guessing
here but I think they might be worth about £60 including the commission.
I should have spent them on lunch at Rias Baxias, but Gary would insist on paying.
Whats he like? I think hes a philanthropist and thats why you
are reading this today and why I will be wearing clean pants tomorrow.
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