There are cardigans to be seen elsewhere

Yet again, in a shameless attempt to get my phone number through dishonestly claiming that someone is trying to impersonate me, the providers of this site have denied me access. That's why I'm moving to a new blog. I'm progressively, and a bit selectively, copying across the material from here and will be adding new stuff soon. See you all (!) over there.

Thank you.

Book Review

No cardigan enthusiast's bookshelf should be without the I-Spy Book of Cardigans (Scholastic, £19.99, 180pp, hardback). This is a sumptuously illustrated book of cardigans for the hardened cardigan enthusiast. It must be said that if you are an enthusiast you'll not fail to be hardened by this collection.

The authors have emphasised the vintage over the modern, but not ignored the cardigan revival of recent years. Collectors may wish to buy the book for its coverage of the modern, despite its limitations in that department, simply because, as the authors point out, it can't go on forever and the previous fallow period lasted for many years. There is unlikely to be such a good historical overview published in the foreseeable future.

In addition to the illustrations there are fascinating sections on cardigan etiquette (did you know, for example, that ethical cardigan wearers refuse to eat broken glass?), the history of cardigan fetishism, biographies of famous cardigan wearers and a compendium of cardigan sexual practices. There are also washing instructions for most fabrics.

By far the most interesting section, though, is the account of a period spent as the cardigan sex slave of a Basingstoke haberdasher. This gruelling saga covers years of humiliation and physical deprivation and much cardigan action. It is unclear who the actual author of this section is, but the detail leaves this reader in no doubt that the account is authentic and unembellished. The Financial Times reviewer accused this section of being little more than misery porn. This reviewer would beg to differ, having recently visited Basingstoke, it looks like quite a nice town. Without giving away too much, it can safely be said that the haberdasher had it coming to him, his premises are now occupied by a branch of Greggs. A fitting end to a sorry saga.

I hesitate to say that this is a book no self respecting cardiganwearer can do without, but really it is, there is so little otherwise to chronicle such an engaging and stimulating fetish. If you propose to read it with a friend or partner, may I suggest making sure you have plenty of lubricant.

The I Spy Book of Cardigans

That several pages of our review copy were stuck together says much for this ambitious volume; that we were unable to review those pages is a disappointment soon to be remedied when we buy our own copy. Recommended, go out and find a copy.

Posh

I am inclined, when the weather permits, to take the occasional constitutional through the medium of a long walk. Where I live there is a posh bit of town and it's in that direction I often head. The ostentation and vulgarity on display there are breathtaking. A conversation I had with a stranger on one such outing included his observing that they can't all be footballers and drug dealers. Whatever they are, they are bereft of taste.

A recent story in the Mail online confirms that one at least is a footballer, who can't sell his gaudy property for what he paid for it a year ago and has taken it off the market. It's back on now at half a million (give or take a bit) less than he paid for it. That's nearly two week's wages down the pan; I cry myself to sleep some nights, I really do.

What's this got to do with cardigans? Well, my walk takes me down Cardigan Road and pathetic as it is, that gives me a slight thrill. When I moved house a couple of years back, I did look to see if there was a way I could live in a Cardigan Street/Road/Avenue or whatever. There were many other considerations that shaped my final choice and I had quite forgotten that I'm within a couple of miles of a Cardigan Road.

This got me thinking about how many Cardigan denominated thoroughfares there might be in England and Wales (the first online gazetteer I stumbled across didn't include Scotland). There are upwards of ninety. Most are visible on google earth, some have the street signs obscured by google. Here's the one I walk down.

Cardigan Road

This month's cardigans I don't actually own. There's a few left at this rather posh retailer for eighty quid a pop, reduced from a hundred and seventy. I won't be buying any. Not because of the price, you understand, but because they don't have any left in my size. Any regular reader would know by now that I would happily sell the house for a good cardigan. Unfortunately, living so close to footballers hasn't done much for prices locally.

If only they had them in my size

Magazine

Homosexual acts between consenting adults (only two at a time) over the age of twenty-one and conducted behind closed doors were finally made legal in England and Wales in 1967, ten years after the Wolfenden Report had proposed it.

The legislation was promoted in parliament by its sponsors, Leo Abse and Lord Arran (named after a species of cardigan, he could never have imagined...) as an act of kindness to the poor homosexual whose preposterous sexual urges were certain to lead to a life of abject misery and quite possibly to incarceration in a closed institution with other men, which for some probably lifted the abject misery a bit. Prison isn't for everyone, though, so decriminalisation was quite the radical idea.

Before this time, to society at large, gay men didn't exist. I used to meet people who claimed it was better before 1967. I'm pretty sure they'd never been to prison or they might have thought differently. There were also those who told us young radicals that we shouldn't rock the boat and that having pubs and clubs that were only occasionally raided and friends who were only occasionally beaten up, was something for which we should have been grateful; that sticking our heads above the parapets was counterproductive. Of course, the very existence of such limited freedoms was entirely due to people sticking their heads above the parapet, but they never really understood this.

Arran Cardigan, worn by gay cardigan enthusiasts to recognise Lord Arran's contribution to law reform.

Wearing a cardigan has never been a radical act, unfortunately. It is however nice to think that Lord Arran's efforts on our behalf have been commemorated by the Arran cardigan.

Before and even after the '67 act there were subversive activities going on. There were code words used in ads in the straight press (I met a very nice man back in 1978 through the NME personal ads which were awash at that time with “Tom Robinson fans”, all, as I was, under age and excluded from other media). The radio, or as we used to call it back then, the radio, had requests for records on Housewives Choice to celebrate ruby weddings, which was code. There was also Julian and Sandy on Round the Horne whose outrageous polari went over most people's heads. And who could forget the Jimmy Savile Violent Non-Consensual Sodomy Hour on the Light Programme on Saturday mornings (only kidding, he did a lot of great work for charidee...).

There were also magazines, not many though. One was called Jeremy and ran for a while, available hardly anywhere. For the cardigan aficionado there was Men's Cardigans, four issues a year of men wearing knitted cardigans, smoking pipes and looking frightfully normal. It could have been mistaken for knitting patterns but there was not much knit-one-purl-one going on, just a load of code amid a sea of innocuousness and, naturally, tobacco advertisements as well as ads for car coats and driving gloves.

Men's Cardigan from 1965. Rather nice card modelled by someone thankfully not smoking a pipe. I'm betting it's in his pocket.

Arran cardigans were undoubtedly featured, but back in 1965 they had little to celebrate.

Happy new year.

Pink

There's something about pink. When I was younger a taste for pink or an inclination to wear it was a sure sign of homosexuality. The pop psychologists were all over that one, along with body language and the distant father thing; utter bullshit all of it and still is. Nevertheless it was important not to wear anything pink, lest it be thought... you know. 

Why anyone thought there should be some subcultural code going on, I can't imagine. Obviously there are and always have been subcultural codes, but to work they really need to confine themselves to the subculture and be unambiguous. Asking my new line manager when I first started work if he'd like me to suck his dick was not a mistake I would make twice; why else would he wear a pink tie? Saucy little tart, he had it coming to him.

That said I must admit I have an affinity for pink. More along the deliberate outrage line than some innate desire to have the decorative taste of a ten year old girl. I obviously have no such taste, I am a grown up man with mature tastes. Temper tantrums on the other hand...

So here are a couple of cardigans, one red with pink buttons and one pink with pink buttons.

Does that look much less butch than red with red I wonder? The real question is about the semiology of the cardigan in general and I'm saving that for my magnum opus (I'll be inviting people home to see that!). 

In this day and age would the pop psychologist read too much into wearing a pink cardigan? I would, for certain but then objectivity in the cardigan department has never been my strong point. I'm going to go out to the bank when I've finished writing this. Let's find out.

A Wildean Excursion

Let's get off to a good start with a Stars in Their Eyes reference; today, Matthew, I'm going to be Oscar Wilde.

“To wear one cardigan, Mr Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune, to wear two looks like carelessness.” Horribly mauled, but captures the essence of a predicament I find myself placed in by the cowboy who installed my central heating boiler. I'm having to wear two cardigans, not through carelessness (at least not my own) but through simple erotic delight and a lack of central heating.

The inner one is a sleeveless number with those faux leather football style buttons and the outer a Uniqlo lambswool with, well, I don't have to say do I ? Very nice, too bulky for going out, but nice indoors.

My Oscar Wilde doesn't end there, though, as I'm sure he told Bosie on many an occasion. You see, having, in my Lady Bracknell quote, laid myself open to accusations of carelessness, I'm going to excuse myself in the character of Canon Chasuble from The Importance of Being Ernest, “None of us are perfect. I myself am peculiarly susceptible to draughts.”. The canon needs to wear a cardigan, or two. I can recommend it.

Winter Draws On

That's a rather weak pun that doesn't work when it's written down. Obviously it should be drawers. It is the sort of rudery that was once forbidden by the BBC. Wikipedia tells me it was proscribed by a document called The Green Book, a guide for light entertainment producers to promote wholesome family values. It merited a specific listing, so it must have been considered utterly unspeakable. Other things that were strictly verboten were effeminacy in men and immorality of any kind.

The article says that the book was kept under lock and key. I fail to understand how this worked; why would you want to keep your rules and guidelines secret from the people who had to abide by them? Still, this was the forties and fifties, the BBC was run by men who wore tweed jackets and smoked pipes, so obviously they knew.

Which brings me seamlessly onto my favourite topic of cardigans. The temperature has dropped noticeably in the last couple of days, which prompted me to seek out an oldie but goody.

I bought it on fleabay some years back, it's knitted by hand (on a machine) and is all knit, so it curls. Aficionados of the knitter's art will appreciate this is why most patterns go knit one - pearl one. This is about the full extent of my knowledge of knitting. It has fisheye buttons arranged horizontally, I think they're supposed to keep you warmer that way.

I imagine a knowledge of knitting, however slight, would be enough to bring down upon me the full weight of opprobrium available to a wielder of The Green Book. Such knowledge in a man would be a sure sign of the very effeminacy that the book would strongly disapprove of. As well as making me unsuitable for the wireless, it would probably have attracted the attention of the local constabulary too, being so obviously an affront to civilised society, not to mention a security risk. While it was never, as I recall from my more radical days, a stated aim that gay people should be able to get married, it gives me much pleasure to call back to that period and shout, we can fucking well get married now!

Rant over. As a bonus, here's a picture of the cardigans I have had my valet lay out ready to be worn next week. I dare say when it comes to the one with the badge he will advise me along the lines of, “May I suggest that sir forego the badge with today's outfit.”. I will of course slap him soundly for his impertinence, he'd be disappointed and upset if I didn't.

Locked Out.

Been a bit of a lacuna in posting and picking up the flood of comment. Sorry about that.

Google locked me out of my account by demanding a phone number which I wasn't about to give them. Thought about it for a couple of weeks. Got a 50p sim from Asda today to get a disposable phone number, went to log in and I'm straight in with no demand for a number, bastards!

Anyway, normal service has been resumed. I'll be posting again as soon as I think of something interesting to say (that'll be a first).

Go Cardless, Indeed!

Last week saw me doing a bit of research on direct debits, a way to enable institutions, usually, to take money out of your bank account. I am not a financial adviser and will not be offering any such advice here. I write only because I stumbled upon a site called Go Cardless (link, if you're interested). The very notion struck me as being utterly preposterous and anti cardiganist. Go cardless? But, but, I always wear a card. Really, absolutely, most of the time.

A little confession. It has been quite warm here in the north west the last few days, so I've only managed to wear one in the evenings. Even that has been more out of a sense of duty than any real challenge to thermal homoeostasis (online Oxford dictionary offers that as a proper spelling. Might be a bit archaic, in which case, good!).

Red Arnold Palmer

I’ve settled on a red Arnold Palmer golf number from back in the days when I seemed always to be buying them on Ebay in the US. Orlon is such a seductive material (sarcasm, they tell me, is very difficult to convey on the web so I leave that one as an exercise for the reader).

Which reminds me, here are the answers to last weeks quiz for those of you who partook. I've had to wade through literally no replies, so here are the answers.

• A. Less than twenty seconds, but it only had five buttons
• 2. Vigorously from behind.
• iii. Dry cleaning, obviously.

Nobody actually completed the limerick, “There was a young man in a cardigan...”, so the prize goes unawarded.

That Go Cardless site might be of some interest, they claim to be cheaper than Paypal.

I'd rather you were too.

As a special bank holiday treat I'll offer my readers a little biographical story. It all happened thirty years ago so what the hell, real names and locations and exaggeration where it makes the narrative more interesting. It must be remembered too, that aspects of this story are highly condensed; for instance, went to the pub and met a man really means went to various pubs night after fucking night and eventually met someone who wasn't a rapacious sex monster, or just generally barking mad. No way did I strike paydirt at the first thrust of the spade.

It was the early eighties, I was fairly new in London, young and besotted with cardigans and gagging for man-action. There was a gay scene to explore, though I was never fully confident out there. It was just before the AIDS crisis really kicked in (though I do remember being scrupulously careful, so it must have kicked in to some extent).

I had plucked up enough courage to get myself into town wearing one of my small but perfectly formed collection of cards. It was to the Salisbury, near Trafalgar square that I took myself one Friday night. A glittering and piss elegant watering hole that was by then getting a bit mixed. I think now few will remember it as a gay pub at all. Having got mildly socially lubricated, I fell into conversation with an American. His name was Matt and he was a couple of years older than me. He worked for an American bank in the city (this was pre big bang, so a job like that registered as boring rather than glamorous and lucrative). Anyway, one thing led to another and at closing time we were on the bus back to my place.

He didn't look a bit like this.

Once there he did the best thing imaginable and helped himself to the card buttons by way of getting me nekkid. That certainly got me going and various sex-type activities ensued. Thus it was that I learned about circumcised men; his being American and of an age where it was pretty much inevitable that boy babies were cut. As I discovered later, on closer inspection, he was cut tight; when he got hard, he could barely open his eyes.

It was a learning experience for me, the pace and rhythm of reaching an orgasm for him were very different to what I was used to. Progress was relentless, much more vigorous than I'd been used to. There seemed to be no notion of sitting back and enjoying the view... and then, suddenly, orgasm, ready or not. It just happened, not without warning but definitely without the option of pausing once the warning signs were evident. Having started progress, the orgasm just ran its course. There seemed to be no controls to modulate or extend it. Interesting, different and even if seen as a detriment to good sex (and they certainly weren't) these characteristics were well complemented by the sheer size of his magnificent organ. In short a huge dick with a hair trigger.

No interest in the cardigan once it was off, sadly.

Come morning I tried to compensate for this by putting on a different card while I went to make tea. My hopes that he'd notice and inquire came to naught, alas.

Tea consumed, it was time for round two and thinking in for a penny, I told him I wanted to keep the card on because it turned me on. He acquiesced and I got a good seeing to wearing a cardigan, from a huge man who reached thundering and frantic orgasm and leaving me thinking I might never walk quite the way I once did. In short absolute bliss.

He got me one of these.

We saw one another quite a lot for what seemed like quite a while. We got close enough for me to tell him about my special interest. He was understanding and really quite coöperative, wearing one himself on occasion to excite me. The best thing he did, though was get his sister to find and send over a letter cardigan which really did the trick if either of us wore it. I always wore a card when we were out together.

As with all these things, we drifted apart. He's probably fabulously rich by now, but what do I care, he left me with a taste for huge circumcised dicks and letter cardigans. You really can't put a price on that.

I got a taste for these, among other things.

BHS goes down the pan

Sad news indeed that BHS appears to be going down the pan with the potential loss of many jobs.

 

I have a peculiar relationship with BHS going back a long way. Since 1976 I have never shopped there, they have had not a penny of my money. 

There is a reason for this. Back then when I was a callow youth, student actually, there was a current affairs programme on the television called World In Action. It was a good programme, won awards and was highly rated. It was made by Yorkshire Television, a reminder that ITV did used to do quality.

One week in early 1976 they did a programme about homosexuals, presented as we always were back then as some sort of problem. In it a man was seen to kiss his boyfriend, a big deal at the time. The newspapers talked about it, the establishment was shocked. The man in question worked for BHS, went into work the next day and was sacked. There was practically no employment protection legislation about in those days so he was out of a job, with no avenue of appeal.

My very first bit of gay activism was to join a picket and leafleting that was mounted the next Saturday to protest about this at the town centre branch of BHS in the city where I was a student. To protect identities, let's call it Birmingham.

 I don't think we did any good for the poor bloke who'd lost his job, but it did me a power of good. As a consequence of this I have never been able to bring myself to spend money in BHS. I have as a consequence missed out on cardigans from the years before fleabay when BHS and M&S were among the few retail outlets that had them.

That said, I do have a BHS card, bought on fleabay and very nice it is too.

While it is rather mean of me to keep up a boycott for forty years, I suspect the money that Philip Green has wrung out of the business has done more damage than the money I haven't put in.

It's been a while, but hasn't it always. The cardigan world moves with glacial slowness, but just occasionally something happens, be it ever so slight.

I've had some badges made up, designed them myself using some sort of design/edit/paint package. The main image is nicked and I'm buggered (...less often than I'd like...) if I can remember where I got it from. If it's yours and you don't want it all over my page, ask and it'll be gone. I'm not using the image commercially, so there's no point claiming a royalty.

It will still be on the badges, though and may appear on tea mugs if I can be bothered. It's going to appear here too, so if you want to be credited, do ask.

There it is. I actually have five but two are on cardigans, a bit like this...

It's a bit of a thrill wearing not only the card but also the badge when I go out. I am so easily amused these days.

That's all for now, have a happy Easter.

Mansion for Sale

I read today that Playboy Mansion is for sale, it's a big old house with a lot of history. It comes with a curse; Hugh Hefner will continue to live there, despite the $200 million asking price.

This made me think about Cardigan Towers, the mansion in which I rattle around and feel increasingly irrelevant. As old age encroaches (108, next birthday. Best send flowers, they'll be good either way) I am given to bouts of incontinent reminiscence. I never capitalised on my hobby the way Hefner did, nor did I have as much well publicised fun. I do however take comfort from the notion that my life was not completely wasted, just mostly wasted.

I have toyed with the idea of putting Cardigan Towers on the market and if there's a prospect of staying here as well, then the idea quite appeals. For those of you who might be in the market, I'm prepared to release a few advance details.



It's a big house with many dedicated cardigan features, no jacuzzis or swimming pools, they play havoc with lambswool.

As you can see, it has a number of cardigan rooms. Sorry, that'll be well appointed cardigan rooms. As with Hefner, the curse is I'll be staying here. I'll be doing that for two reasons. One is that I like the place, the other is that this bloke comes round every week to do the gardens.

And since this is the first post of 2016, happy new year.

Skins

I was walking through Manchester with a friend the other week when we were passed by what looked like a genuine skinhead. 18 hole DMs, bleached jeans, braces to hold them up, Ben Sherman shirt and No1 crop. My friend commented that you don't see many of them about these days, which prompted me to enquire whether he meant in real life or in fantasy.

Naturally my fantasy skin wears a cardigan. He puts in only the rarest of appearances because I'm old enough to remember the original skins who did little to endear themselves to polite society even before they were hijacked by the far right. That the look, if not the ethos, has subsequently been taken up by a part of the gay world is a source of ironic amusement. That that segment has failed to pick up on the cardigan aspect is, however, a disappointment.

Growing up in the seventies we were exposed to a series of books from New English Library with titles like Skinhead, Suedehead, Skinhead Escapes, written by an old drunk called Richard Allen (who died more than twenty years ago, which is why I'm brave enough to describe him so). They were passed around at school and I found them faintly disgusting for their violence and celebration of all things plebeian. I'm a tad less snobbish these days.

An exception was Suedehead, which, if I remember rightly, had a character who while ostensibly violent, obnoxious and heterosexual was actually violent, obnoxious and inclined to be a bit homosexual. This, back then, was a rare thrill; a gay character who wasn't a victim. No cardigan action though. I seem to remember a chapter ending by pointing out an ear ring bouncing about in a gay encounter which identified the character and was probably meant to shock us to find out that our hero was capable of such things.

Regular readers (I'll never tire of using that expression) will not be surprised to learn that I have a couple of skinhead style cardigans. How nice it would be to have a couple of skins to put in them.

He'd do very nicely.

Finally, I'd like to thank spagnak whose encouraging comments I've only just spotted; you're too kind! I was under the impression I'd get emails telling me about pending comments. It seems I do, within minutes of finding them myself and including them on the blog. Sorry for the delay.

Drawers

I am reminded of the time I had a new kitchen fitted and my downstairs neighbour asked if she could come and see it. Having endured all the drilling and hammering over a couple of days without complaint, it would have been churlish to deny her.

She was suitably appreciative and fortunately not very observant. Mostly obscured in the washing up bowl in the sink was an enormous dildo. She didn't spot it, much to my relief, but the incident led me to speculate as to how I might have explained it if she had.

I eventually settled on, "I've no idea what it is, I've been using it to unblock the drains. What do you use yours for?"

Which leads me with my usual clumsy inelegance to talking about the contents of my drawers (Ooh, er, missus...). There is a rumour hereabouts that I am fond of cardigans. It will come as no surprise that the drawers in and about my bedroom are used to store them. Pretty much all the drawers. The pair of pants and pair of socks that I'm not wearing is either out drying or lying on a chair; no drawers for them. The cardigans get to live in the drawers and also in the wardrobe, but the latter doesn't offer much to photograph.

Storing the cards this way means I can open a drawer and get a nice view when it suits me. This puts opening drawers up there with

   "Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
      Bright copper kettles and warm woollen mittens"

as among my favourite things. In fact there's fuck all in that song that does anything for me. So it's cardigans as usual.

That about covers it for drawers, except perhaps to ask, what do you use yours for?

Lambswool and its care

Being of little imagination, generating new posts can be a struggle. The following will be an example of such a struggle.

I'm not really a texture person and when I first got on the internet I discovered that many people who share my fetish (or something like it) are in it for texture. I have never been much concerned about smooth, fuzzy, whatever.

There is one exception to this. I do really rather like lambswool. Even this covers a range of textures and as the years have gone on seems to have got thinner and thinner, presumably as technology has enabled less and less wool, or perhaps more and more reclaimed or re textured wool to be formed into a cardigan-like garment. They're getting like tinned ham, they have a passing relationship to the animal of origin but stuff that is contiguous in the garment was never so in the animal. Uniqlo, Woolovers, I'm looking at you; your cardigans have gone down the pan.

Despite this being the case I find myself owning a few. I must have made a conscious decision to buy because I make a point of never going on ebay (or anywhere else that money might be spent) with even a trace of drink on board. So it's my own fault I own some rubbish cards that I particularly like the texture of.

That few always have the wrong buttons, so substitutes are made. Two hole and if at all aesthetically possible, white. This gives some specimens the look of being rescued and refurbished and never works with saturated colours. An example where I think it works well is presented below. I like it, perhaps you do too.

 

It's from Uniqlo and bought in the last couple of years, so it's a bit thin. Quite inappropriate for this time of year so it's on my mannequin and not me.

A note before I close to those who might find accidental deposits of gentleman's relish getting into their favourite cardigans. I'm told the stuff stains appallingly and washing this poor quality lambswool turns it into felt. Just thought I'd pass that on. Anyone wishing to see the terrible consequences of mixing lambswool and gentleman's relish can email me. For some reason I seem to be in possession of a picture of just such a mess. Probably best not post it here.

Long Time, No Post.

I could call all my contributions long time, no post but that would get monotonous. This one I'll call obsession and it describes cardigan related events in the early nineties.

Where I lived in Sarf Landan there was a gentleman's outfitters which I used to pass occasionally while out shopping and pass daily on the bus as I travelled to and from work. It vanished some years back and is now a sandwich shop.

At this particular time it never really drew my attention until one day a cardigan appeared in the window. It was from the Tootal Manatease range and of a style which had never really appealed before. Five button, elaborate, chunky four hole buttons designed to be manipulated by the arthritic and constitutionally clumsy.

It was displayed buttoned up with one of the sleeves pinned up such that the top button was not visible, very provocative. It was a pale blue colour, acrylic, patterned, ribbed and spectacularly naff. It was also £25 which I considered outrageous back then.

It is all the more surprising therefore that I became utterly obsessed with this specific cardigan. I used to make detours to walk past the shop to see it, I used to tempt myself to buy it. I even had fantasies about owning it and wearing it.

When I passed the shop on the bus I used to look out to see if I could catch a glimpse of "my cardigan" and even when I couldn't, I got a frisson of excitement from being near it. All most weird and almost incomprehensible now. I put it down to my working spectacularly long hours at the time and imbibing a little too freely of the alcohol to make it tolerable.

On one occasion I actually went to the shop with money in  my pocket to buy the thing but failed even to enter the establishment through sheer fear that I would have been found out. Perhaps I would have been made to try it on and given myself away through obvious arousal or syncope at the sheer excitement of having the thing on.

After a few weeks it disappeared from the window but I always remembered it.

Some months later I took a look round the sale in a department store not too far from where I lived and shock, horror they had that variety of cardigan on sale. Not in my size and not the colour of the special one, but near enough. I bought one and very nice it was too.

Fast forward some years and someone invented the Internets and Ebay. All that was then required was for me to check every day for eight years and suddenly, there was my card. And so, dear reader, I bought it. Here it is.

I have others in beige, almost like it but this will always be the one that I became obsessed with for a few weeks, really obsessed, all those years ago.

They're on kid's telly now.

There is a kids television show here in the UK called Big Cook Little Cook. I’m not sure if it’s still shown, most things are to fill up our multi-channel world so it probably is. The interesting thing about it is that both the protagonists (or “cooks” as the show would have it) wear rather attractive cardigans. They get mixed up in cookery related shenanigans mediated through cheap CGI, little kids will be thrilled, or perhaps as bored as I was.

The cardigans are however pretty good, though much of the time obscured by aprons (boo hiss) and the two blokes who wear them are reasonably easy on the eye. I wonder where those cards are now? Stuck in some costume repository doing no good at all I would imagine. Sad loss. Still, you can catch them on youtube  in perpetuity probably.

Here’s a couple of screen-grabs including what I believe would be called a facial if it were gentleman’s relish, most likely pudding batter.

                                                                     Christmas Card

                                                                              Facial

The Cardigan Riots

Great moments in Cardigan History

Back in 1964, the era of the mods and rockers, many men wore cardigans. They were fashionable though still, perhaps, considered a little wimpish. They were often hand knitted by mothers and grandmothers.

For anyone who liked them, cardigans were as attractive then as they are now. What they had then that they don’t have now is a following. Men who were inclined to wear them stuck together and identified. To apply the taxonomy outlined above, they were unlikely to be rockers. Though even at the time, when society was in denial about homosexuality it was understood that a gay man could belong to that particular group (cf The Leather Boys, book and film from 1964, a title which at the time was not freighted with the meaning it has now). In short, cardigans were most likely to be worn by mods.

Mods and rockers did not get on. There were skirmishes, often at seaside resorts where the two groups came into conflict at weekends and on bank holidays. These conflicts formed the basis of the big moral panic of the day and were a topic upon which the paid gobs of that time pontificated ad nauseam. Contrary to their predictions the world did not come to an end, although their world did. These days we are a lot better informed and alert to the crap that the likes of  Lord Boothby and Malcolm Muggeridge poured forth. They were hypocrites and quite frankly cunts.

Anyway, my point is about the picture I’ve posted here. I fancy that it was taken during the Great Cardigan Riot of 1964 on Brighton seafront. The cardigan wearers were demanding a change in the law to permit the wearing of cardigans during acts of homosexual congress. This was illegal at the time and many men were in prison as a result. It was believed back then that incarcerating gay men in large, thinly supervised, single sex institutions would go some way to rehabilitating them.

[The information in this piece was drawn from the Quarterly Journal of Idle Speculation and is unlikely to be true. Except for the paid gobs bit, those people really were appalling.]

It's been a long time. I've moved house, I no longer live in the Great Wen. Home will still be referred to as cardigan towers but there'll be a lot more room.

Having all this space has led me to ponder on the nature of space and seeing a story in the papers today about the discovery of gravitational waves led me to reading about the big rip. The big rip is a theory about the end of the universe that will come about in about 22 billion years if certain assumptions are met. All a bit cosmological but anyway, matter falls apart so my cardigans won't need washing any more. The involvement of cardigans in this cataclysm doesn't end there. The illustration below indicates what will happen in the run up to the big rip.

Now it may just be me, almost certainly is, but that image looks decidedly like a cardigan. If I were a "spiritual" person or given to being messianic I'd be writing a couple of paragraphs of bollox about this. As it happens I'm not.