FILE UNDER: NOT EVERYTHING FROM THE GOLDEN ERA WAS A GOOD IDEA 

THE COMET 4 IN 1 SAFETY HAIR CUTTING TOOL. (Released: 1969).

Eek...

The Comet 4 IN 1 was a do-it-yourself hair cutting gizmo: plastic; roughly 3 inches by 4 inches (including comb teeth); with razor-type cutting blades within. It boasted that it: cuts; trims; grooms; removes [hair]…

I don't know if this was a purely British instrument of self-inflicted - or in the case of some kids, parentally inflicted - coiffured ridicule and humiliation - but I must suppose that most countries had something similar... 

I'll guess too, that the appearance on the market of these slickly advertised horror haircut kits - dressed up as 'easy to use instant hairdressing expertise', came about because of the upsurge of guys growing long hair - and not going to barber's shops. I can imagine the inventor / marketing company thinking that 'longhairs' must surely still feel the need for a trim; a thin out; take out the split ends - that kind of thing... 

They were probably right too... But this abomination of a solution was not the answer... And, oh dear God, the suffering it caused... 

These things became comedy gold for stand-up comedians for the few years that they were in common circulation - before people wised-up.

Stand-up routines describing guys coming in from the pub, drunk, and remembering 'that great little hair tool they bought last week' - and going full-on with it in front of the bathroom mirror...

I'd describe the scenario like this:

The happy, long-ish hair (because he's not a drop-out: he's just 'Hippie-cool', y'see...  ) reveller returns home from a night on the sauce. He heads straight to the bathroom (obviously), and once relieved of nature's business, with the usual sigh, ...he catches sight of his cheerful, but slightly dishevelled self in the bathroom mirror....

It's now that he remembers the Comet 4 IN 1 that he bought the other day... Feeling confident and creative, he decides that this is a great time to try it out...

Through his skewed, drunken perception he decides he will 'easily comb out those frizzy split ends - with smooth, even strokes...' (The kind of thing promised by the advertising... ).

After a few pull-throughs on his hair with this blessing from the gods of barbering, the young rake turns his head slightly, left and right, admiring what to him looks like shoulder length, shining, frizz free locks: like one of those women in a hairspray advert... 

... His wayward boozy vision doesn't see the reality: hair that looks like it's been layered by an abstract sculptor with a sense of humour... 

But, pleased with his delusion, he is emboldened to add a bit of a trim... Perhaps go for a fringe, instead of his usual centre parting...

Hack-hack... Chop chop... And then a bit of what can be best described as sawing... 

:
'Whoa-heyyy...!' he exclaims, admiring the results. 'Looking GOOD, my man..!'

In fact, his hairstyle now looks like an odd mix of a threadbare carpet and the 'hair' on a scarecrow - with a 'Dave Hill from Slade' fringe... that's crooked and has wound up further back than his natural hairline – part-way back up his head... 

He remains unaware... 'Wow, dude - you look like a new man..!' he congratulates himself...

In fact, it's more accurate to say that he looks like a new SPECIES... 

Next day he wakes up... Remembers his creativity from the night before... Nervously returns to the bathroom, and... 'Woah-my-god..! Woah-my-god..!'

In desperation, he considers reaching for the Comet 4 IN 1 again, and working on a Peter Gabriel wide centre parting - and claiming that was his intention, when he meets friends... But no... That wouldn't explain the threadbare carpet or the Scarecrow look... 

No choice but to put it down to Karma - and stomp up and down on the Comet 4 IN 1...

But I too suffered at the bladed teeth of the Comet 4 IN 1 - as a kid of 11...

My mother had been trying to persuade my Old Man that in these modern times (summer, 1970; in September I was to start high school), lads of my age and my older bro's age (he was 14 at the time) should not be frog-marched to the barber's for a 1930s style ‘short-back-and-sides’ haircut: because long hair was 'in'...

She finally won - but only after agreeing to try out home hair trimming on us first. The Comet 4 IN 1 advert made that look easy... 

Well - me first - my older bro would wait to assess the results, before deciding whether or not to submit to the same... I sat in a chair while my mum went to work... 

The result of her best efforts left me looking like Mo from The Three Stooges... I somehow wound up with a pudding-bowl haircut - without the use of a pudding-bowl... 

Fortunately, I was a quite a little scrapper as a kid - and at school not much was said. Some classmates made sympathetic comments though - assuming that my family had fallen on hard times, and had to resort to the 'poor man's – pudding-bowl on the head - haircut':

'Pudding bowl..?' they asked, with sad voices.

'No', I replied, affronted: 'My Old Man bought one of those haircutting things you see on TV...' They just winced… It transpired that some of them had also experienced, or witnessed, the results of this haircutting tool from Hell…

One guy told of how his older bro - who at that time was in Second Year at high school – had tried growing his hair over-ear length – but was finally brow-beaten by their Old Man into succumbing to the ‘Ordeal By Comet 4 IN 1’, and fell under their Old Man’s ham-fisted coiffuring ministrations... From the way I heard the story, this poor guy fared worse than me... He sat in a chair while his Old Man used the Comet 4 IN 1 with all the artistic subtlety of a wrecking crew.  While scraping and hacking brutally at the back of his bro's head, their Old Man was extolling the Comet 4 IN 1 as 'A GREAT thing..! A GREAT thing..! A MARVEL.!'

The result, from what I understood from the description, was that the guy wound up with a hair...'style'...??? that was fashionable only in holy orders of monastic service... His haircut had a hole in the back of it... 

I don't know how he coped at high school – apparently he never spoke about it...

Outside of school, in my neighbourhood, I coped with the situation – friends were discreet enough to not say much – though I did get a playful jibe here and there – but only in fun.

Other than that, I put a lid on the issue by main force:

In my neighbourhood there were some posh, snooty folks - who fancied themselves middle-class. The lads in these families – all around the same age as me and my bro - were part of our football and street games crew – but not what I’d call friends. One chubby kid from across the street - a year older than me, and a fair bit bigger (in height and width…  ), tried a bit of snooty mockery. Imprudently, he stood just a few feet away from me when he jeered:

'Ha..! Too poor for the barber's..! – Clearly, you've had a pudding-bowl haircu...'

He didn't get to finish his taunt. I stepped right up to him and - POW..! - punched him right on the hooter...  He ran off, howling...

I didn't hear anymore from anyone about pudding-bowls or Mo from The Three Stooges...

But, as a result, my mum won the argument about hairstyles - and from then on (with back-handed thanks to the Comet 4 IN 1), me and my bro were left to manage our own hairstyle and length preferences. By September, I started high school with hair about jaw-line length – and it continued heading south for the remainder of my school career… 

So there it is, folks - the Comet 4 IN 1... Maybe you have your own memories... Maybe some good ones too...???

(Footnote: I really should add this disclaimer: the stories and opinions expressed above - while some are true, and some are comedic caricature - are just my own opinion, possibly shared by those who may agree and / or have similar stories. It must be acknowledged, of course, that the Comet 4-In-1 may, to some folks, be the greatest thing since sliced ear - (oops!) BREAD! - BREAD! - since sliced BREAD..! Sorry...  - and that the descriptions in this article are entirely subjective... )

(Footnote 2: I made this graphic from photo images that I found online. My acknowledgment and thanks to whoever took these photos - and to Comet 4 In 1 too, I guess... )

(M).

Textual content: ©Copyright MLM Arts 13. 01. 2018. Edited and re-posted: 14. 01. 2019. 14. 01. 2020. Edited and re-posted: 14. 01. 2021paragraph

FILE UNDER: NOT EVERYTHING FROM THE 1960s & 70s WAS A GOOD IDEA:

SCHOOL DESKS AS PROTECTION FROM NUCLEAR BOMBS... 

The picture in this graphic will be familiar to 'Chronicles' folks in North America: it's a still from a training film; it shows school kids hiding under their desks at school...

It's called 'Duck and Cover' training...

What are they training for...? The World Hide and Seek Championships? No.

How to dodge if an angry teacher throws a board duster (or something) at you (that kind of thing DID happen, btw...) No.

First Aid if you're feeling faint? No...

This was Cold War training in how to survive an attack by nuclear bombs... 

Yes, I will repeat that - for those of younger generations who may not actually believe this: this was part of a USA and Canada training exercise for school kids, in which they were assured that they'd stand a pre-tty good chance of surviving several megatons of nuclear bomb blast - and the searing heat - and the radiation that followed, by hiding under their desks at school... 

They really did think that we were THAT stupid... 

I say 'we', because, although we didn't get similar training UK schools, we did all get TV training films and pamphlets called 'Protect and Survive' (which is also the subject of an article on 'Chronicles'): which advised us to whitewash our windows; make a lean-to out of interior doors in the house; stack it with sandbags - and hide there when the bombs went off - for three weeks... 

This was the world that we were born into and grew up around as kids and youths: repeated reminders that we could be nuked at any moment - and idiotic advice about what to do about it... 

It's a big reason why we collectively said 'NO!' to that society - and launched a paradigm shift in the collective psyche; became the 'whole generation - with anew explanation' (Scott McKenzie, 'San Francisco' (1967))... 

(My thanks to Mort (G. Hughes) for sending me this picture; as stated, it's a still from the 'Duck and Cover' training advice, shown to people in the USA ( I believe Canada had the same or something similar (?)) (M).

Textual content: © Copyright MLM Arts 12. 11. 2021

FILE UNDER: NOT EVERYTHING FROM THE GOLDEN ERA WAS A GOOD IDEA: THE VOYAGER GOLD DISC... 

The Voyager 1 space exploration craft was launched in 1977. It was launched for two reasons: to gather information about our solar system and send it back to earth... And then (this is the second reason), to float off out of the the solar system to - who knows where...? And act as a greetings card to any possible alien life that it may encounter... 

The 'greetings card' was in the form of sounds and images that would best get across what Humanity is all about. They were chosen by a committee of experts, advised by Cosmologist, Dr. Carl Sagan.

All very laudable... 

So what's my issue here? 

A few things, really... 

The main one being: the info, sent in dreamy-eyed hope and wishfulness to what were anticipated to be vastly more advanced extraterrestrial beings, was sent on a 12" record... A record... With grooves an' all... 

Anyone else thinking: 'Jeez-Loiuse! We might as well have had the Apollo guys build a fire on the Moon and send smoke signals... 

OK - so now some of you are thinking: 'Well - what else could we have sent? A phonographic record was the state of the art at the time...'

I reply:

'What else could we have sent? A record player would have been handy...  Even one of those cheesy little battery powered portable ones that you were always afraid that you'd get for Christmas as your first record player...' 

Instead, we send some technology which in just a few years after the launch of Voyager 1 was going to be obsolete even to us... And besides that, nothing to play it on... 

We could only hope that this supposed alien civilization was going through a vinyl revival phase - probably for about the thousandth time in its long history... 

If not? What? ET finds Voyager - gets all excited by the idea that they've FINALLY found evidence of other life in the universe - they examine it and conclude:

'A fancy plate... They've sent us a fancy plate... What's their game? Are they trying to interest us in ordering a full crockery service?'

'Hmm...' replies a fellow ET. 'So we finally find other life in the galaxy - and what do we find? - a species of bloody door to door salesmen... Oh whoo-pee-do...'

'And oi! Look 'ere! It's got a hole in the middle!* Cheeky gits! They're trying to palm-off faulty good on us...!'

(*Yes - do note: it's an old fashioned phonographic disc alright: complete with hole in the middle: really assuming that these super-advanced aliens are still at the vinyl phonographic records stage...  Anyway - back to our aliens... )

'I'm going to wrap it up and send it back', this grey, spindly, almond-eyed alien resolves, after noticing the 'flaw'... 

'With a message, I suggest', his colleague eagerly exclaims; adding: 'A message inviting them to stick their crockery where their particular star doesn't shine...'

'Tee-hee! Should I? I mean, there are some nice patterns on 'em... A swirly groove on one side and some engraving on the other... They've gone to a lot of trouble over these (...apart from sending us faulty goods; let's let that slide by for a moment...) My missus would like this; she might order the full service from them if I let her have a look...'

'Which is precisely why you must wrap it up and send it back - with that message, telling them where to shove it. If your missus orders one, so will mine (you know what they're like!) And next thing we know these aliens sign them up for their mail order catalogue - and our houses are full of ornamental junk within a year...'

'You're right! But what do I put the message on?

'Record it on a megaxelophonic micro communicorder, of course - they can slap it into their megaxelophonic player at their end...'

Oh aye. That would work... 

What's on the disc? Various sounds - including music genres, from earth... Hendrix is on there... 

And among the visuals, there's that Da Vinci depiction of 'Mankind': you know? the one where all humans are depicted as muscular long-hairs - with four arms flapping about, and four legs: two standing and two more spread akimbo... And hermaphrodite genitals...  That's us. Sure it is. It's us to a 'T'.  ET will take a look at that and think and wonder... 

(Now, here's a relevant aside: there's a hypothesis out there in the scientific community, that tries to account for the unaccountable existence of octopus and squid (their existence has no traceable path in evolution), by suggesting that they hitched a ride on an asteroid and came to earth that way (seriously: there really is such an hypothesis... ))...

So maybe ET will look at the Da Vinci picture and say:

'Well... seems like those octopus and squid that we sent off on that asteroid all those years ago found a home... Look 'ere - this is what they evolved into...'

'What? Eight-limbed crockery salesmen?'

'Dunno about salesMEN, actually: saleshermaphrodites by the look of this picture...'

'Ewww... We knew there was something odd about them...'

'Mind you - they won't have a missus signing up for mail order catalogues and filling their gaff full of junk...'

'Aye, that's a plus...'

OK, so the main point is, that ET will decipher the mathematical images and messages; the star charts; the sketch of the solar system - and know we're here and where to find us... 

Aye. Right. What could possibly go wrong... I mean, they're BOUND to be friendly, aren't they? Sure... Being (we're supposing) so vastly advanced, they'll likely be about as friendly as we are towards ants - or, in fact, any other form of life... 

That's IF there is any alien life out there...  Personally, I hope so - I love the idea... But the likelihood...? Not (err...) quite so high as Carl Sagan was convinced it was at the time... 

Sagan equated that only three factors were required for a life supporting planet: right sized sun; the right sized planet; the right distance from that sun... And, with the billions of stars in our galaxy, there must be loads of life bearing planets... 

In the meantime, he's been proven to be spectacularly wrong about that: by now, there are over 200 identified factors required for a life supporting planet... And that reduces the likelihood of there being even one (more) in our galaxy to vanishingly small odds... 

So there we have it: we sent a completely useless, solid gold fancy plate out into the expanse of space - at best for nothing (based on the dewy-eyed wonder and optimism of dodgey science (dogmatically asserted, but wrong...); or at worst, as directions and details about where we are and how to find us, to alien life that may very likely just see our planet as a source of resources and see us as primitive animals, to be treated... the way WE treat animals... 

I make the Voyager gold disc a definite candidate for our running feature: 'File Under: Not Everything From The Golden Era Was A Good Idea'... 

(I found this picture online (I added the caption myself). My acknowledgment and thanks to whoever took the picture (identity unknown to me), and, of course, to NASA)... ) (M).

Textual content: © Copyright MLM Arts 22. 06. 2022paragraph

FILE UNDER: NOT EVERYTHING FROM THE GOLDEN ERA WAS A GOOD IDEA:

CLACKERS... 

Remember these? Solid balls of uselessness: what was the freakin' point...?  Two swinging balls have never been made such useless articles since Pope Gregory VII made decrees concerning the personal behaviour of Roman Catholic clergymen in the 12th. Century...  Make of that what you will... 

(OK - let's say His Holiness banned ping-pong... Played with two balls... () Or something... Just to keep things from getting all 'British 1970s Sit-Com' around here...  )

Seriously though: what was the point? 

Toys - we were told, when they came out - originally in 1968. Toys. For us kids...  Apart from the aimless, futile flapping and swinging about that we were reduced to - as we attempted to get that steady rythmic rapid clacking up and down going - there was also the sheer bloody danger of them! 

Finger whackers! Knuckle bruisers! And, what finally got them banned: they tended to shatter - and send shards of plastic flying at faces; into eyes...! Eek...!  It was like hand grenades going off... 

The originals were made of toughened glass... I jest-ye-not: GLASS... And when they started to shatter (who'da thunk it? glass balls - shatter when repeatedly smashed together? ne-ver... ), instead of banning them right there and then, woah no - they gave solid, hard plastic a try... 

That wouldn't shatter, surely...  I mean: other brittle hard stuff; that won't react the same as the first brittle hard stuff - will it...? Eh? Who thinks this stuff up? Who tests these things? 

And then there's the types of chaps at school who, as a matter of their character and personality disorders (we're told these days: back in the day, it was just being nasty little gits... ), would bring these to school under the cover of them being toys - but with the sole intention of using them as instruments of terror and the inflicting of damage upon their fellow pupils... 

Well, I personally didn't have clackers - but I knew people who did, and I tried them. I'm simply no good at that kind of thing. It's like yo-yos: I'm hopeless: I can 'yo' pretty well: letting the thing just drop; but yo - followed by yo: down then up...? I just don't have that skill. Clackers were the same: I could 'clack' - but not plurally: not clackER; not clackety-clack - not me: just the one clack - then everything else after that was flapping and swinging - and damaging my fingers and knuckles... 

Clackers were, of course, one of the many whacko crazes that expert enthusiasts would eagerly predict to become 'the next Olympic sport' - LOL...!  - Aye, right: maybe every four years, somewhere in the world, there's a Whacko Olympic Games going on - with Hula Hoopers; clacker clackers; Rubic Cubers - and all the rest - winning medals that none of us hear about... because none of us give a monkey's... LOL...! 

Clackers. Yes. Well... I personally say: what was the freakin' point...?!! But this page is democratic - my opinion is worth no more or less than anyone else's; and I'm pretty sure there'll be some folks out there who loved these things. So I'll leave it open to public opinion...  (M).

Textual content: © Copyright MLM Arts 09. 02. 2022

FILE UNDER: NOT EVERYTHING FROM THE 1960s & 70s ERA WAS A GOOD IDEA:

THE STYLPOHONE... 

(...Though in this case, it COULD have been...  For reasons that will be explained... )

The Stylophone by Dubrec: invented in 1967 by Brian Jarvis: about the size of a portable transistor radio (remember them?); its keys made electronic sounds of various pitches when tapped by the stylus / pen - and that (apparently) was enough to qualify it to be described (well, loosely) as a musical instrument... 

It wasn't until around 1973 that the slick, wood-effect model was marketed and unleashed on the public: boasting that it featured on Bowie's 'Space Oddity' single (originally a 1969 single, but it was more successful when it was re-released in the mid-1970s.)

The Stylophone caught the 1970s 'novelty gadgets' wave for a while, but, like the rest of those novelty gadgets, soon enough just disappeared; in the case of the Stylophone, in 1975... 

SO - TO THE NOVELTY ATTRACTION OF IT... 

The Stylophone has been called a 'pocket synthesiser': it was pitched pretty much as attainable instant musicianship - right out of the box: just follow the instruction booklet and you could be playing tunes in minutes... Or, as was usually the case, you not only COULD be, but WOULD be making a variety of wailing sounds, like a long tailed dachshund trying to make its way through a room full of people in rocking chairs... The kind of racket that a even a bagpiper would find intolerable... 

Yep - as was usually the case with all Golden Era 'wonder gadgets', the reality didn't live up to the advertisement demos and hype... 

But it DID seem so cool - especially to people like me: the 'would love to me a musician, but just couldn't be bothered / didn't think I had even the most basic aptitude' types...

The Stylophone seemed to be the answer: It didn't require the thing that befuddled me about other musical instruments: two handed co-ordination: there's separate learning for what each hand has to do - and the two disciplines have to co-ordinate together... Somehow, even the idea of that just threw me... 

But the Stylophone? Why, this looked as easy as writing! 

It kinda was too... But then again, when it comes to writing, there's Steinbeck, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Melville, Shakespeare, Austen, etc.. and then there's a 3 year old writing ABC's in crayon... 

Yer average Stylophone hack, rookie 'maestro' was the equivalent of the latter... 

But like I say, to the 'non-musical, but wannabes' like me, it looked like manna from heaven; it was the answer... 

It was around late 1974 that it first began to catch my imagination... 

Most of the guys I hung around with actually were musical: not least, my best buddy Big D, a great guitarist, who played in bands. So I didn't share with them my Stylophone plans to become the next big thing in modern music: mainly because, beneath my naïve, excitable enthusiasm, I was aware of the 'still, small voice' of reality and common-sense, which continually told me:

'This is the nerdiest, most embarrassing utter fantasy you've ever dreamed of. You KNOW that this is just a variation on a fancy doorbell or bicycle buzzer. Don't, f'gawd's sake, make your dreams of being the Rick Wakeman of the Stylophone / doorbell generally known... '

So I didn't... I spoke about the Stylophone only in a 'speakeasy' kind of way: gauging responses from people, until I found a couple of guys whose responses were of the 'hmm... that could be the instrument of the future...' sort. I knew that these were kindred spirits: like me, about as musically inept as a turnip, but with musicianship dreams... 

Within a week - and without even having any Stylophones: we'd decided to ask for one each for Christmas...  LOL..!  - we three had made plans to form a band... Yes - form a band...  A Stylophone trio.  Three musically talentless nerds that were going to one day play to thousands at Madison Square Garden... 

And the thing is too, that for this nerdy, musically dweeby combo, we came up with this grungy, anarchistic name; something really 'eavy, which I can't remember now, but it was something like Hell's Pigs, or The Hogs of Hades, or something... I remember it had a porcine theme, for some reason... 

And we started writing song lyrics, in preparation for the music that we'd write on our Stylophones. 

Probably influenced by being Black Sabbath fans, these songs tends to be themed around the band name; titles like:

'Devil Pig'
'Hog and Roll'
'Hog Moon Rising'

we thought that a cover of 'War Pigs' was very much in order... 

that kind of thing... 

Finally, one of us pointed this out, saying:

'Is this necessary? I mean, we're seeing a lot of swine references here... Apart from Black Sabbath, what other band writes so many songs based on the band name and theme?'

We agreed to ease up on the pork themed song writing... 

All this ridiculous fantasy only lasted about a couple of weeks. But in that time, in my mind I was at sell out gigs, doing Chuck Berry style 'duck walk' posing as I soloed across the stage on the Stylophone; my band mates head-banging a rhythm in accompaniment... 

But that 'still, small voice' finally became stern, and pulled me back, with something like the UK TV sit-com 'Dad's Army' character, Captain Mainwaring, reprimanding the youthful Private Pike, dryly, contemptuously droning:

'You stupid boy...' 

It was over - thank gawd... I'm pretty sure that the other guys went through the same self reproach, because after that couple of weeks of naive, foolish enthusiasm, we just stopped even talking about it... Christmas was the usual albums for presents... 

BUT - ON THE 'IT COULD HAVE BEEN A GOOD IDEA' SIDE... 

As mentioned - and as is displayed in the graphics for this article - David Bowie really did use the Stylophone on 'Space Oddity': those eerie electronic sounds - that's the Stylophone...  And Bowie dug it out again for the track 'Slip Away', on his 2002 album, 'Heathen'.

There are a few other examples of it being used on records too - nothing very high profile, but even so... 

Also very cool, is footage of George Harrison, John Lennon, and Billy Preston fooling around in the studio with a Stylophone. It winds up with John keeping a rythm going on piano, while Billy solos on this variation on the doorbell - and, being one if the world's great musicians, makes it sound good... Billy even seeks quite impressed by it...! 

Maybe if it hadn't been marketed pretty much as a toy (even with all its instant music hype); and maybe if some bands and artists had followed Bowie's lead and made subtle, unobtrusive use of it... Maybe it could have got a certain low level credibility - at least as a sound effect device...??? 

And maybe if it had been released in the early 1980s, during the Techno Pop phase - it would have done pretty well...??? 

Maybe, maybe, maybe... But back in the day, nothing - not even Bowie - could elevate the Stylophone above being seen as a toy - and a bit of a musical joke... 

Hey! Maybe The Hogs of Hades could have saved it...? Right now, instead of being on the 'Chronicles' page, you'd be on the Hogs of Hades fan page...  LOL...!  (M).

(The image in this graphic is credited in the bottom left corner. My acknowledge and thanks to the creator of the image, and the creator of the original adverts for The Stylophone. The surrounding artwork is my own.)

Textual content: © Copyright MLM Arts 02. 12. 2021 paragraph

FILE UNDER: NOT EVERYTHING FROM THE GOLDEN ERA WAS A GOOD IDEA: KIPPER TIES... 

I'm admitting it right up front: I don't really know why I'm picking on kipper ties as 'not a good idea' - and something that I found more than faintly ridiculous... 

You see, I wrote this as a gentle pop at a short lived fashion accessory... But once it was done, I wasn't comfortable... It was more like a rant..

But a rant against what? Kipper ties? Now who's being ridiculous, I had to admit... It's not like a kipper tie ever jumped out and mugged me - or caused me any problems at all, for that matter...  I didn't even own a kipper tie... 

So I left it - and now I've come back to it... With the thought that it's not so much the kipper tie I'm having a pop at - it's the 'young man about town': career conscious; image conscious; but wants to be a bit of a rebel at the weekend...  He wants to let his perfectly coiffured 'just long enough to be risque' hair down - and the garish take on conventional tie wearing that was the kipper - did that for him... 

And that's another thing: as a complete send-up of the conventionality of tie wearing, the kipper could have worked: if worn as part of what I call (and what I wore) 'anti-fashion': a mix and match (or don't match!) attire worn by people like me and those that I hung around with: assembled from charity shops, Indian craft shops, Army and Navy Surplus Stores - and any old cast-offs. A kipper tie mixed in with that mish-mash would have made for wonderful irony, I think... 

But here's my wee rant about kipper ties - or maybe, their wearers... 

OK, to be accurate, kipper ties originated after World War II - as a show of material ostentation in reaction to an end to wartime austerity; they were popular with young, swing-time 'Zoot suiters'...  But they didn't last very long... 

Then, for some reason (ostentation again, I guess... ), the kipper made a comeback in the late 1960s...  ... Only this time, the gormless didn't have the excuse of post-war trauma and ahell-shock to fall back on... 

Nope - this was a choice born purely out of lousy dress sense - nothing more. Well, nothing except maybe an unconscious desire among the strand of youth who fancied themselves 'fashionable' to dress like circus clowns... 

That was another thing, you see: as has been pointed out on here many times, there were several expressions of youth culture during The Golden Era (the term 'Hippies' has become a convenient catch-all term - but only a minority described themselves that way), and one of them was the sauve, stylish young man-about-town with a rebel streak to his sleek, snappy dressing...  ... An annoying, oily 'flash Harry' in other words... 

These guys liked to occasionally be seen with the grungy 'Longhairs' (people like me ), for a bit of street cred; but not often, because their 'thing' was to hit the dance hall or members only social clubs on a weekend; with their 'just daring enough' hair at about jaw level length - maybe just touching the shoulder: but immaculately coiffured at the hairdresser's (not the barber's, mind you - the hairdresser's... ); and with a budget bought (but who'll know?) two piece suit: with big flares in the trousers; a garish shirt with s collar that dreaded a strong wind - for from fear of it flapping and the wearer taking off like a bird...  And...

...To finish this rebel-sauve ensemble: a kipper tie: loud, hideously patterned, wider than the Mississippi River, a knot as big as a baseball - and made of enough material to make a pair of curtains (which the pattern on it would be better suited for... )

The young rake would be particularly proud of this: purposefully keeping his jacket open, so that this bloody great thing like a floppy windsock - only harsher on the eye - would be clearly visible to all admirers... 

This rebel man-about-town has a steady job and a steady girlfriend; the type of girlfriend that would be attracted to a guy in a sleek suit, a big winged collar shirt - and a kipper tie... 

They'd first hit a restaurant - probably Indian or Chinese, because these were just starting to pop up at the time - and so it made this progressive young couple-about-town look urbane, cosmopolitan and sophisticated (they'll likely have actually taken chopsticks lessons at the local community centre before feeling confident to swagger into the Chinese restaurant... )

Then they hit the Dance Hall: or, more likely, a private social club that held DJ events at the weekend. 

Laddo has his jacket off as he takes to the dance floor: in large part to show off his kipper to best effect... (His TIE, his TIE - stop making up your own jokes out there...! ) Besides, his tight fitting, circulation cutting trousers - you know? the type that have an architectural feature in common with Saint Paul's Cathedral... (Eh? What feature? - Saint Paul's has no ballroom...  - This is another 'make of that what you will' moment... ) - would take care of any other display that his ostentation required of him... 

His partner and 'intended' (remember that quaint old phrase?) shuffles her feet and swings her arms about in front of him and around her handbag - but can't take her eyes off this trendy, go-getter 'catch' and his free swinging kipper...  (You're at it again out there - aren't you? making up your own jokes... ). She's besotted... He's the kipper tied king of all he surveys... 

Well - so it was for a short while... Then somebody must have said something like:

'Hmm... I look like a complete clown in this, don't I...'

or something - and the kipper was discarded... Only to be replaced around the neck of the same types by... THE CRAVAT... 

Don't get me started... 

Well - sorry about the rant, folks - it's just in fun really though... 

What are you're good and bad impressions and memories of kipper ties...?  (M).

Textual content: © Copyright MLM Arts 22. 02. 2022