Personal stylist anyone?

The British are often criticised for their lack of style (here in Germany as well) but personally when it comes down to the least stylish nation I would probably put Germany in the top 5, maybe even the top 3...I'm not being mean merely observant.


I'll give you my justifications:

1. When I started inviting friends to come along and celebrate the Jubilee at a garden party and advised them that as my house would be dressed then so should they be the girls immediately started considering their wardrobes, whether they had a suitable frock or whether a shopping expedition was called for.  The couple of Germans I've invited (after all this is an English celebration and therefore more suited to expat fun) I felt I had to be more explicit about the 'dress code', because if they turn up in jeans they (the girls) are going to feel really out of place, as I'm quite sure that there will be at least one hat making an appearance.  You see we Brits (and I include the Commonwealth countries here) know how to dress up and how to dress for the occasion.
2. The wearing of black (head to toe) in winter and then white the moment the sun appears in spring is not stylish when everyone one does it.  It becomes a uniform.  The world (and the shops) is full of pretty colours outside of black and white, and no, grey and beige and greige are never fashion/style statements.
3. Ugly feet are a sin, probably not one listed in the bible but as I'm a fully paid up atheist I can make up my own list of sins.  If you have to wear sensible (i.e. ugly but comfortable) open toed sandals to accompany your white or greige outfit then please have the decency to either paint your toe nails or get a pedicure.  Naked toes are quite simply, naked.
4. There is a style of linen clothing available here that I had never come across before moving to Germany tending towards 'sack'.  There are tunics that come to mid thigh and skirts and trousers that come to mid calf and all seem to have a fake wrap around look to them (even the trousers) and all of course come in 'natural' hues, i.e. shades of brown, grey and black.  All are meant to be worn together and teamed with godawful ugly shoes that have cork or wooden soles with their seams on the outside.  There is a shop here in Kettwig that sells this stuff and only this stuff and has managed to stay in business for at least three years so far, so the locals clearly like it.
5. A friend of mine (Welsh) got married to a German a few months ago, she was so concerned that all the non British guests would turn up looking as though they'd wandered in off the streets that she had the wedding in Britain and themed it, 1920's, so that everyone had to make an effort.  Seriously, I've seen photos of weddings here and it's upsetting.  The first thing a Brit does on receiving a wedding invite is plan the outfit, hat, shoes, bag, dress, accessories...the whole she-bang.  Here, people look as though they came from work.  Another expat friend plans that should her German boyfriend ever propose then the wedding will be in the UK and there will be a dress code.
6. Socks with sandals.  Almost as heinous a crime as naked nails in book.  No, no, no.
7. The wearing of a scarf, all day, every day, come rain or shine, winter or summer is not a fashion statement.  It is repetitive and boring and also completely unnecessary, and if you have a sore throat it will not make it better. 
8. When we were at the theatre on Sunday we rather enjoyed passing comment on the (lack of) sartorial elegance parading past.  Marianne voiced the thought, "Do you think there's any demand for personal stylists here?"  Now the answer to that is clearly that the need (in our eyes) is there (shorts to see Cate Blanchett at the theatre? No!) But that the people needing pointing in the right direction and steering away from the greige don't realise what they're doing wrong and so would never think to go to a personal stylist and have their wardrobe...enlivened.

Phew.  I'm glad I've got that off my chest.

From the ridiculous to the sublime

This weekend was a cultural extravaganza, Saturday was the Eurovision Song Contest (or Grand Prix as they call it here, to the confusion of those Eurovirgins at Sexpat Emma's party, where are the cars they asked) and Sunday was proper theatre at the annual Reckinghausen Arts Festival.


The Eurovision party was great fun, everyone got into the spirit of the evening by dressing up to represent their favoured country, and very un P.C. we were too, Nana Mouskouri was there for Greece, both Russia and Azerbajan were represented by hookers, Germany had her boobs on show in a dirndl, Spain had even managed to convince her husband to dress up (admittedly Russia had her pimp alongside, altho I think he was channelling sport rather than sex) the most the other males could manage were shirts of appropriate colours - but at least they were there, at a Eurovision party (drinking beer on the terrace & monitoring the bbq for the majority of the evening it must be said, but they were there). Sweden had on a Swedish ice hockey shirt, Ireland was clad in orange, white and green, Norway had one partner in white the other in red, France channelled the clothing of the French entry (itsy bitsy hotpants) and I was regal in purple with matching crown for the United Kingdom.


I don't think there were many of us there who could say we watched the whole of every entrant, although everyone watched the Russian grannies (5 (or was or 6) elderly ladies dressed in age appropriate Russian garb, combined age apparently 484, I'm sure one of them had no teeth) they were...entertaining although I think Jedward for Ireland, embodied the Eurovision spirit more - for heaven's sake, they were dressed from head to toe in silver lamé suits, they performed handsprings and cartwheels and had a huge fountain in the centre of the stage (the song was titled "Waterline" I think...) it doesn't get more Euro than that.


But the results showed the same old story, countries voting for their neighbours.  Which is why the U.K. ended up 2nd from bottom while Russia was 2nd from top. Sweden won with a song that would (and maybe will) be quite at home in the clubs this summer, a good choice.


Sunday and Sing, Marianne and I had tickets to see Cate Blanchett in "Gross und Klein". A German play written in the 70's, set in the cold war era, but performed in English by an Australian theatre troupe...and not just 'a play' either, but a 'plot-free' piece of theatre, I wont bore you with details but the review in the Guardian is bang on. Cate is incredible, mesmerising, and a damn good job too because the actual story...hmmm, was there a story?


I loved the staging of the play, minimalistic and very clever. But I'm saved the dilemma of deciding whether to recommend whether people shoild go or not because I think it's sold out!


It has to be said that we had as much fun before the show and in the (way too short) interval* people watching and passing comment on the fashions, no that implies more style than was observed, clothing worn to the theatre on a hot, sunny evening** and also indulging in the new Scott Mills game. I heard this 'game' first being played on BBC3's coverage of the Eurovision semi finals on Thursday***. Scott Mills and Sara Cox (both Radio 1 dj's) were compering the show for the U.K. audiences and Scott suggested to Sara that they play the game he and his friends play when on holiday, "gay or european". You see a person and have to say whether they are gay or european (european I guess because some Europeans have a certain style and way of dressing and grooming themselves that might lead the casual observer to think that they're gay.)  A totally un P.C. game I know, but in my defence I heard about it from a guy who is himself gay, so if he thinks it's amusing to play then where's the harm?   We played**** this on Saturday night (afterall the Eurovision song contest is a notoriously gay fest) and picked it up again at the theatre, but on Sunday I suggested the modification of 'european or non european' to avoid the possible embarassment of being overheard and understood (the play was in English afterall, although with German overtitles*****).


All in all I think my weekend has balanced itself out. An evening of totally trashy TV followed by an evening of such dense culture that I'm good for the rest of the year now!






* the play is almost 3 hours long, and we had 15 minutes to get down (and then back up) maybe four flights of stairs (we were fourth row from the back, right up in the gods) and then queue and queue and queue for a drink (27C outside + no A/C inside + a meandering, hard to follow plot = cold caffeine intake mandatory).
** but I think more on that in another blog, there's so much more that can be said about German clothing choices.
*** hadn't planned to watch it, but it becomes a little addictive.
**** played implies possibly more action and commitment than actually occurs, all that is required to participate is pointing (surreptitiously if out in public) at the 'victim' and asking "gay or european?"
***** as in up above the stage, rather than at the bottom, along the edge of the stage, where they mightn't be seen.

Sunday Snaps 115

Last night was Eurovision, I went to Sexpat Emma's Eurotrash party dressed to support the U.K.  You may get more details later in the week, but for now there's just me, being all regal.

Shhhh....I think it might be summer

I wrote this draft a couple of hours ago, sitting in my garden under a sun umbrella, saved it and at that point the stupid damn ipad app decided to think about saving it...it thought and it thought and told me, finally that it had done it.  So off I trotted to carry on with my chores (post office, supermarket, bakers, chemist, dry cleaners - you get the picture) secure in the knowledge that all I needed to do was come home and check through for rogue apostrophes and typos.  Only to find when I logged onto the laptop that no such draft existed...could've turned the air blue, but restrained myself because the sun is still shining and it's just a little further over the yard arm now and therefore just a little closer to Pimms o'clock...so this won't be quite what I wrote earlier because alas and alack I donot have a photographic memory (which explains the 2:2).


I was thinking about what a good summer I have lined up for me, it makes me smile just to think about it....


The first thing that makes me so, so happy is that I'm going to be getting together with my three bestest girlfriends, not all at the same time (that would be pure overload) but consecutively (thank goodness for spell check).  First off is a weekend in Rome with Al, who I last saw in August, we chat every week (or aim to) and each time usually for an hour or so, about nothing important, we're not resolving world peace, just keeping each other sane.  We could, I guess meet at hers in England or here in Germany, but we've decided on an all out girlie weekend in Rome (in two weeks time, 14 days and I'll be there) can barely wait, just need to plan what to take (as well as the Lego Mindstorm).  After Al I'll be seeing Helen in Spain when we go on holiday.  I've known Helen since Uni and our children have known each since forever, so we get to chat, catching up on the previous year and drink as much Rioja as humanly possible while the children try to drown each in the pool (tricky seeing as they all swim like Olympic medal winning fish).  A week after we're back from Spain another ex Uni friend comes to stay with her children.  Three great friends to catch up with properly all within the space of three months - an embarrassment of riches.


The second thing that is putting a smile on my face (apart from the glorious weather that means I have to finally abandon socks and boots and can happily wiggle my toes* in the fresh air) is that I have a fairly busy social diary ahead of me:

This weekend is the Eurovision Party over at Expat Emma's (or Sexpat Emma as we like to call her) which will be heaps of fun, trust me.  Sunday I have theatre, Cate Blanchett is coming to Recklinghausen to perform in something, I can't remember what, but when a friend asked if I wanted to go see her perform I jumped at the chance - it's got to be better than John Malkovich who I saw the last two years (mad as a truly mad thing).


The following weekend is the Queen's Jubilee and although we don't get the benefit of the four day weekend (we have that this weekend, although it's nothing to do with HRH) we will be celebrating here with a proper English garden party, I'm just praying the weather stays fine...


Then I have my weekend in Rome, after that my parents are here for a week, taking over dog walking duties and ironing I hope, as long as I keep them supplied with cake and ice cream, that's the usual deal.


When my parents have gone home we have Jas's Abschlussfest (end of term, end of school, we're going onto to bigger and better things kind of party, that starts mid afternoon and goes on until the parents finally manage to drag their children home)  I am determined that this will be a fun event and not too serious.  In fact I am so serious in my determination that everyone will have fun that I seem to be helping organise along with my Polish friend (us foreigners do stick together) to this end there will be copious quantities of beer and wine.


After the Abschlussfest I think we have only one week of term left before the summer holidays start and a week later we're in Spain.  The six weeks of the summer holidays should take care of themselves, two weeks in Spain, one week with friends here and my brother, Mr Mudlog is planning to visit - he wants to assault the local biergarten he says, I guess life in Saudi can be pretty dry.  The children will be delighted to see Uncle Ed (despite his bad habit of training them to go fetch him beer from the fridge and open it for him) partly because he has the ability to behave in a childish manner** and partly because he owes them both at least one present, if not two.


So as you can see, I have good reason to have a wide smile on my face.  The future's bright, although personally I wouldn't describe it as orange, more a bright sunny, summer blue, the kind that makes you screw your eyes up it's so bright.




* this is only when the toe nails have been painted.  I do not approve of toe nails being flaunted naked.  If they're out and about they need to be dressed and pretty and woe betide any of my friends that dares to show their feet to the world bare...
** I'm anticipating much rolling of the eyes from Ben, who will quite possibly look down on his Uncle in more ways than one this year.