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shermaramaThis morning, I got up early-ish and headed to Borough market. I got turfed off the 25 at Aldgate, having paid the 80p and everything, so I thought I'd walk the rest of the way. Good side of living in a place with all this civic malarkey going on, I walked past the Tower of London and across Tower Bridge, just to get to the shops like. I got to Borough market and bought cheese and duck eggs and really tasty smoked pork & garlic sausages-inna-bun and some ostrich burgers, and, incidentally, spotted Zak from Kn0wn pushing cheese to tourists at one of the stalls. You never know, do you?
Next part of the plan was to walk to the vicinity of Covent Garden and Oxford Street to see if I could buy a new swimsuit. Here I was thwarted by, and I should have made some preliminary guess about something like this after being turfed off the 25 at Aldgate, the bad side of civic malarkey in the form of the Lord Mayor's Parade going all along past St.Paul's and all the way to the Strand, meaning I had to go to somewhere beyond Waterloo Bridge to be able to get north of the route. Still, at the precise moment I caught up with the parade, the brass band were doing a drum solo (if you can do a drum solo with thirty or so drummers, I mean all the brass had shut up and the drummers were giving it some with the messing around with beats, anyway) and that was amusing. In the vicinity of anyone at all military, though, even though they're a home-build and not trying to look like fake combats, I still tend to feel a little ashamed of my orange DPM trousers.
So eventually I made it to the Speedo shop in Covent Garden. I get these wild, irrational hopes, y'see, when I haven't been clothes shopping recently enough to have had them dashed; I think to myself, if I go to a shop, there will be things in it that fit me, and I can try them on, and thus walk out of the shop with something that fits me. Oh! what folly. I thought the Speedo shop itself might be a good idea, because they do some things in a 42 and 44, I know from websites, and I thought that a shop that sells nothing other than Speedo stuff might have such sizes in stock and thus all would be fine. *sigh*. At first, hopeless optimist that I am, I tried on some 40s, often the top size available in shops and in some makes the top size at all, but of course they were too small. I tried on about three things they had in a 42, and remembered that the basic size is only the first hurdle, as it were. They're designed for people shorter than me so they need to stretch somewhere for the height, and that's usually the straps because they're the thinnest, stretchiest bit. Which leaves the bit you put your chest in quite a long way down. And, I'm just broader across the chest and shoulders than they expect so I'm usually falling out of both the top and the sides at once, because the bit you put your chest is also too narrow. By way of topping the whole thing off, size 42 swimsuits are designed for fat people, because obviously anyone wearing a size 42 is fat rather than just on a larger scale, and the arse on a 42 is stupidly flappy. Nice. Eventually after appealing for advice, trying on lots of things, and not even getting close, they managed to call my bluff on finding something big enough by pulling out a size 44 in the sort of suit that's designed for maximum respectability and discretion - right up to the neck, low-cut legs, plain black and fully lined. It was like wearing a saggy sack. It technically was large enough and all, but I hate to think how much drag it would have caused, towing half a ton of flapping fabric along.
So, I think it's safe to say that Speedo don't make anything that fits me, not because of the official number sizes but because they're all shaped for someone shorter and smaller. Or people who like to wear sacks. The obvious solution is to try and get the same make as my old one - it's a Tyr, which seems to be a US brand from what I can find, but the shop in Brighton I bought the last one from has gone. Foolishly, I tried some of the other shops in the area - surely you can get anything on Oxford Street? and was sorely disappointed. Yes, so I shouldn't have expected the chav-wear shops to even bother pretending they're sports shops any more, of course they don't sell swimsuits. John Lewis only sell Speedo ones in their sports department, and like everywhere else I tried, only the sort for sitting by the pool in in the ladies department. I think I'm going to have to do some more research.
Came home, swore a solemn oath to the gas company that I was who I said I was and that I wanted to be on the gas bill (for proving I live here purposes), went out again, bought all the ingredients for industrial quantities of Christmas cake, came home again, eat tea. Now I'm going to shave the sides of my head, have a shower and then go to West London for Abi's party. I made it for the very end of hers last year, with Jon in tow after a gig, hopefully I'll make this one a bit earlier, like.
Next part of the plan was to walk to the vicinity of Covent Garden and Oxford Street to see if I could buy a new swimsuit. Here I was thwarted by, and I should have made some preliminary guess about something like this after being turfed off the 25 at Aldgate, the bad side of civic malarkey in the form of the Lord Mayor's Parade going all along past St.Paul's and all the way to the Strand, meaning I had to go to somewhere beyond Waterloo Bridge to be able to get north of the route. Still, at the precise moment I caught up with the parade, the brass band were doing a drum solo (if you can do a drum solo with thirty or so drummers, I mean all the brass had shut up and the drummers were giving it some with the messing around with beats, anyway) and that was amusing. In the vicinity of anyone at all military, though, even though they're a home-build and not trying to look like fake combats, I still tend to feel a little ashamed of my orange DPM trousers.
So eventually I made it to the Speedo shop in Covent Garden. I get these wild, irrational hopes, y'see, when I haven't been clothes shopping recently enough to have had them dashed; I think to myself, if I go to a shop, there will be things in it that fit me, and I can try them on, and thus walk out of the shop with something that fits me. Oh! what folly. I thought the Speedo shop itself might be a good idea, because they do some things in a 42 and 44, I know from websites, and I thought that a shop that sells nothing other than Speedo stuff might have such sizes in stock and thus all would be fine. *sigh*. At first, hopeless optimist that I am, I tried on some 40s, often the top size available in shops and in some makes the top size at all, but of course they were too small. I tried on about three things they had in a 42, and remembered that the basic size is only the first hurdle, as it were. They're designed for people shorter than me so they need to stretch somewhere for the height, and that's usually the straps because they're the thinnest, stretchiest bit. Which leaves the bit you put your chest in quite a long way down. And, I'm just broader across the chest and shoulders than they expect so I'm usually falling out of both the top and the sides at once, because the bit you put your chest is also too narrow. By way of topping the whole thing off, size 42 swimsuits are designed for fat people, because obviously anyone wearing a size 42 is fat rather than just on a larger scale, and the arse on a 42 is stupidly flappy. Nice. Eventually after appealing for advice, trying on lots of things, and not even getting close, they managed to call my bluff on finding something big enough by pulling out a size 44 in the sort of suit that's designed for maximum respectability and discretion - right up to the neck, low-cut legs, plain black and fully lined. It was like wearing a saggy sack. It technically was large enough and all, but I hate to think how much drag it would have caused, towing half a ton of flapping fabric along.
So, I think it's safe to say that Speedo don't make anything that fits me, not because of the official number sizes but because they're all shaped for someone shorter and smaller. Or people who like to wear sacks. The obvious solution is to try and get the same make as my old one - it's a Tyr, which seems to be a US brand from what I can find, but the shop in Brighton I bought the last one from has gone. Foolishly, I tried some of the other shops in the area - surely you can get anything on Oxford Street? and was sorely disappointed. Yes, so I shouldn't have expected the chav-wear shops to even bother pretending they're sports shops any more, of course they don't sell swimsuits. John Lewis only sell Speedo ones in their sports department, and like everywhere else I tried, only the sort for sitting by the pool in in the ladies department. I think I'm going to have to do some more research.
Came home, swore a solemn oath to the gas company that I was who I said I was and that I wanted to be on the gas bill (for proving I live here purposes), went out again, bought all the ingredients for industrial quantities of Christmas cake, came home again, eat tea. Now I'm going to shave the sides of my head, have a shower and then go to West London for Abi's party. I made it for the very end of hers last year, with Jon in tow after a gig, hopefully I'll make this one a bit earlier, like.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-11 09:59 pm (UTC)LTS
Date: 2006-11-12 10:14 am (UTC)I'll see what I can find.. The Tyr website itself claims to tell you about UK stockists but actually doesn't, bah!
no subject
Date: 2006-11-12 02:21 am (UTC)Mrs Chris has a size 14 top and a size 10 bottom and generally has to buy things that come in two peices.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-12 10:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-12 08:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-12 11:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-13 08:51 am (UTC)mail-order it is then
Date: 2006-11-13 10:35 am (UTC)