Get Your Vintage On

I discovered a great website with free vintage images.

http://olddesignshop.com/gallery/book-pages/

I'm keen to frame a few for the flat... now to choose.

The last one isn't from the site, but rather a random google image.

Mustache of the year.

Today my mustache is a year old. No blade has touched my lip in 12 months. I am very proud of it, as I am sure most would realise.

It has been a long journey but I have enjoyed it. Let's see where it takes us.

What suits me best?

Every man should have a suit. A plain and simple statement that may get people debating that suits are not mandatory in our modern lives. I tend to disagree.

I foolishly bought my first suit when I was 19. Foolish you say? I had not finished growing and the pants only fit properly for about 2 years, the jacket is still serviceable but tight over the shoulders. Never the less, that suit was worn on a good number of occasions, including a wedding and a formal 21^st party.

When I bought that suit I learned some basic lessons on fit and so on. A suit needs to fit properly. I have no interest in how much you paid for it, if your R20 000 suit does not fit well you have wasted your money. A R500 suit that is fitted properly can look better than a R5 000 suit which is too big or small.

One way to look at it is that a suit is like armour, social armour if you like. When it fits properly and is in a style that is appropriate to your build then you are filled with confidence.  

I will not go into details over style and fit now, I can discuss that later, but my point is that the suit is not dead. Just ask Harvey Specter.

On time

When I consider time, I think about watches. I have a particular affinity to watches, especially pocket watches. I suspect it has something to do with my father. As long as I could remember my father seemed to be tinkering with watches, servicing and repairing. I never understood why he liked to tinker in this way until purchased a pocket watch for myself and asked him about the mechanism.

He very kindly found his old tools and gave me a tutorial on the servicing of a mechanical watch. Jewelled movements, balance wheels, crowns and barrel springs; these fascinating things were suddenly explained to me. It is just so elegantly designed and crafted. Once I had finished the job and wound the mechanism I had the joy of hearing the quiet, urgent tick of the serviced watch.

I have purchased two more vintage and antique pocket watches since. The detail and care that went into even an ordinary everyday watch from just 80 years ago is impressive. I love my watches, especially the sound of the ticking. I had grown so accustomed to the “double tick” of a mechanical watch that when I heard a quartz clock I thought it was broken since it only ticks once a second.

I would love to grow my collection, but some of the time pieces I have wanted are prohibitively expensive. I will need to build it up slowly then, perhaps acquiring an interesting watch once every 18 months or so. We will see where the future takes me.

This is one of mine, a lovely Elgin.

 Call me watch crazy, but I envy this collection.

Oblivion.

“Are you going to age with grace?
Are you going to age without mistakes?
Are you going to age with grace,
Or only to wake and hide your face?

When oblivion is calling out your name,
You always take it further than I ever can.”
                                                                                  Bastille – “Oblivion”

The idea for this post is slightly stolen from a comment that The Squire made to me the other day.

“Oblivion” is the name of a song by Bastille – we are obsessed with Bastille at the moment.

“Oblivion” is also the name of a wine bar near our flat. We have been going there for years. I have a lot of memories, some blurry and some deeply etched into my mind.

For a time, we were all too young to go there… the age restriction was 21 or 23. I just remember being asked to leave once. Once I came of age I wasted no time in losing face on the pole in the middle of the dance floor. I can’t resist a pole. There are long lost photos of me pole dancing with a umbrella at a staff function (I hope they are lost). It’s actually just really really fun, and does get attention. I have no upper-body strength (working on it now) so could never lift myself up on the pole, just wobble about at the bottom in a fairly attractive manner.

The pole, brings me to the story of the “Inappropriate Lunch”. I had noticed that Oblivion did a full Sunday roast, so I booked a table for our family lunch. We were celebrating my parent’s 30th Wedding Anniversary. Long story short, I need not have booked, we were the only people there. The roast was cancelled, we had to order pizza…. So much for my posh lunch?

I think our Twitter feed fills in the rest of the story (read from the bottom up):

 

On growing a moustache

In only a handful of weeks my beloved moustache will be a year old. It has been an adventure that one cannot take lightly at all.

It all began on a simple holiday trip with friends to two African countries. We did not feel like shaving while traveling and so let our facial hair do as it wanted. Mine voted on the classic “Moustache and Goatee”, while my companions had theirs opt towards full beards.  

Once I had returned home my moustache had grown to a respectable length. People accepted that I had the moustache and beard, but after a while asked “When are you going to shave?” and “Where is this going?” 

Secretly I knew I wanted to be able to twirl the ends, so I put off trimming until eventually I needed to purchase actual Moustache Wax. The wax played a vital role in training the moustache to grow in the right direction. Normally the hair will grow straight  down and over one’s mouth and so wax is applied to direct the hair away from the centre (the cupid’s bow of the mouth) towards the edges. As it grew longer the shape became more evident, I was only able to get a proper twist with the ends turning up after 3 months. 

Subsequently as it grew the wax I was using became too weak to hold the shape properly. I feel this is due to a) there being an extensive amount of hair to support and b) the wax being too soft for Cape Town summer and becoming more of moustache oil. I switched products successfully for about 3 months and am now on my third which is working the best.

At present my beloved is around 16cm from end to end when uncurled. It would have been longer if I did not need to trim the ends once in a while to keep them even with each other.

I often have strangers compliment me on the form and structure, or they make silly remarks over Movember being over. I quite frankly believe that they are just not the type of person suited to having a handlebar moustache, hence are jealous. 

Oh, what about the beard? It was cover up for the moustache during Movember, I shaved it off in December. I don’t miss it.

 

New Musical Obsession: Passenger

"Mike Rosenberg (born 17 May 1984), better known by his stage name Passenger, is an English folk-rock singer-songwriter. His nickname comes from the folk-rock band of which he was the founder, main vocalist and songwriter, and which released just one album. When the members of the band chose to go their own separate ways in 2009, Rosenberg opted to keep the band's name for his solo work. His most successful single "Let Her Go" has topped the charts in 16 countries thus far."

- Wikipedia

 

 

We still need to get Rosenberg's latest album, but have been lapping up an older band album "Wicked Man's Rest"

 

Here's what I think is my favourite song on the album so far:

 

 

 

New Blog.... and it smells amazing

Mmmm, the smell of a new blog…. And this one smells like beer and moustache wax….

Every new blog is created for a reason and {The Paine Kids} has been born out of a need to chronicle the amazing Beer Tasting hosted by The Kids last Saturday.

I, Sharona have my own blog, which focusses on health and very personal matters…. Devoting about twenty posts just to beer just seemed, well, wrong. Wine yes, but not beer! Good gracious me ;)

We managed to taste 37 different beers and ciders – mostly imports and craft. I think we had about 24 people crammed into our lounge… it was epic to say the least. I’ve decided to group the beers/ciders by brewery or similarity… so expect quite a few posts over the next couple of days, or weeks (I might get over keen and write a novel on each one…)

Till then,

Adieu