It's hip 2 B square!

Pop Will Eat Itself likes to span the entire spectrum of pop cultural phenomena, and the murky world of FASHION is no exception.

If you’ve been in any of the UK’s major cultural hubs in the past three years, you may have seen one of these:


It’s a Barbour Beaufort waxed jacket, traditionally favoured by the Royal Family and anyone who owns a country estate (currently retailing at RRP £189.95).

But you would have probably seen it worn as below, or teamed with a MOUSTACHE and tasseled loafers.




However, while recently strolling through the not particularly hip North Kent town of Gillingham (population 100,000), I passed a group of WORKING-CLASS URBAN YOUTHS rocking replicas of the black Barbour Chelsea quilted jacket. This jacket has also been favoured by City bankers (left) and CREATIVELY-MOBILE URBANITES for some years now.

I am all in favour of this kind of cultural cross-pollinisation, I’m just surprised at how quickly this trend has filtered down from the cutting edge. At Topman.com there is now even a Country and Heritage section in its jackets department, where you can buy "uber cool" Barbour knock-offs!

Now, I am down with the Barbour jacket entering the mainstream. It is functional, understated, and taps into a RICH VEIN OF ENGLISH HERITAGE. It is also durable and long lasting, counteracting the DISPOSABLE/PRIMARK culture.

So how do you explain the rise of these TRADITIONAL AMERICAN BOATING SHOES (AKA Topsiders)?




This trend was, if not started by, then surely brought to prominence by this band, who, despite attending Ivy League institution Columbia University and wearing cotton Oxford shirts, claim they are not real WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants), but are merely “satirising the look” of upper middle class preps.

Commentators in America have suggested that Vampire Weekend offer some kind of MATERIALISTIC ESCAPISM in the midst of global financial crisis. So maybe this is what’s going on with the rise in heritage/upper class clothing?

But the sporting of Barbour jackets in East London PRE-DATES the collapse of Northern Rock! (source: my own eyes). This begs the inevitable question: Did East-London hipsters predict Britain’s financial crisis?*

Also, is it LESS or MORE ironic to wear the attire of a traditional upper-class Conservative now that these guys are actually in power?



The appropriation of this type of clothing into youth-led fashion is nothing new. Working-class FOOTBALL CASUALS were rocking the Beaufort on the terraces in the 1980s, during which time the country was also in the midst of FINANCIAL RECESSION, bringing us culturally full-cycle!

But the kids wearing Barbours today are more likely to be trust-fund kids than working class kids, and they have probably PILFERED their Barbours from their grandparents! I even know a girl who rocks a Barbour-style jacket that was a compulsory part of her school uniform at public boarding school! There is a DELICIOUS IRONY here if anyone can be bothered to explore it.

Now, PWEI does not espouse CULTURAL SNOBBERY, and that includes INVERSE CULTURAL SNOBBERY. But all of this coincides with a truly frightening rise to prominence of this:



There is no irony to be found here – this shop is for GENUINE SLOANES.

You might say, “Who cares why people are wearing this stuff, maybe it’s purely about aesthetics?"

That may be true, but if PWEI can’t apply pseudo-academic analysis to trivial matters, then what's the point?

*No

Headlines

The recent news story about alleged Russian spy Anna Chapman caught my eye in particular for the continuous use of the phrase REDHEAD SPY in newspaper headlines, including this one, which is illustrated by a picture of a woman who is clearly a BRUNETTE.

This highlighted the REDUCTIVE NATURE and SEXISM of the press – this theme has been covered in depth by an article in the London Evening Standard, which I can now no longer locate!

Here is the beige-jacketed spy in action in Times Square – probably during a covert mission or something.



Anyway, this got me thinking about the general ABSURDITY of press headlines, which by their nature must be reductive, but also eye-catching.

A few years ago I saw a headline in the Manchester Evening News exclaiming MAN FOUND ALIVE IN STOCKPORT, which is an example of SEMANTIC AMBIGUITY.

This ramps up the SOCIAL DEPRIVATION and URBAN DECAY of the former industrial town, while also playing on its PAROCHIAL rivalry with Manchester.

Is this a clumsy accident, or the deliberate work of a wry-eyed Mancunian subeditor? Sadly, my experience of the Manchester Evening News would lead me to believe the former.

However, some headlines are clearly intentionally ambiguous, like this one from The South London Press that I heard about: ELEPHANT RATS INVADE ICELAND.

Apparently, the article was about rodent infestation at an Elephant and Castle branch of the popular frozen food store...

Interestingly there is a technical term for semantically/syntactically ambiguous headlines – CRASH BLOSSOMS – which originates from a headline which is not actually funny. The ultimate Crash Blossom is the mythical World War I headline EIGHTH ARMY PUSH BOTTLES UP GERMAN REAR – there is a whole website dedicated to ambiguous headlines here.

Speaking of parochialism reminds me of a story my uncle told me that when the RMS (ROYAL MAIL SHIP) Titanic sank in 1912, the headline in Glasgow was GLASGOW MAN DIES AT SEA.

Some tentative googling tells me that, not only is this story probably apocryphal, it is also not exclusive to Glasgow, with citations coming from various parts of Scotland and England.

The helpful Newsletter of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research says that various permutations of this headline are often cited as examples of EXTREME PAROCHIALISM, though none has ever been verified.

The most extreme, ascribed to The Press and Journal of Aberdeen is TITANIC SINKS: LOCAL MAN LOSES POCKET WATCH.

The Newsletter also notes that CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED film director Ethan Coen, in the introduction to the published screenplay of Fargo says that Trotsky lived for a time in New York, accounting for this headline which appeared in a local paper in October 1917: BRONX MAN LEADS RUSSIAN REVOLUTION.

I also want to talk about headlines which reduce TRAGIC SITUATIONS into COMIC ABSURDITY.

My friend told me about this headline in a Brighton newspaper: WINDOW CLEANER KILLED BY GIANT NOVELTY PENCIL.

There is something about the FUTILITY of the man's job and the PUERILE TRIVIALITY of the giant pencil which combine to create a truly awe-inspiring piece of tragicomedy.

The same story in the Mirror is even illustrated with this picture! I'm pretty sure this is a standard size pencil.



The story turns out to be about a man with a history of psychosis who committed suicide by stabbing himself repeatedly in the groin with what the Mirror refers to as a JUMBO SOUVENIR PENCIL.

This is clearly a bona fide tragedy, but can the media be blamed for their reporting on this? Maybe they are just reflecting THE ABSURD which pervades every corner of life.

Finally, more food for thought is this recent headline from The Metro: WRESTLING MIDGETS KILLED BY FAKE HOOKERS, which is absolutely not misleading.

Welcome!

Welcome to Pop Will Eat Itself – where I will be discussing POP-CULTURAL PHENOMENA, as well as other general ABSURDITIES OF LIFE.

Last week I turned on the television and was confronted with this:



Now – I don't know exactly what it means to "go all Robinson Crusoe", but according to Channel 4, that is exactly what Deal or No Deal went, in a special edition entitled Desert Island Deal.

At no point is it explained why.

If you didn't see it, there is no way of accurately describing the sheer SURREAL SPECTRE of the events that unfolded, but just to give you an idea:

– Noel Edmonds appears dressed as Robinson Crusoe and adopts a Steptoe-esque Cockney accent. (In Daniel Defoe's SEMINAL NOVEL of 1719, Crusoe sets sail from the YORKSHIRE city of Hull and is based on real-life castaway Alexander Selkirk, from SCOTLAND.)

– He lunges around dangerously, evoking the deleterious mental effects of lack of human contact and the delirium caused by excessive seawater consumption.

– He exclaims: "This is the show where we examine each others chests!", which is a weak attempt at INNUENDO.

Noel introduces the first contestant with customary fanfare: "Carly Fullerton from Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire – a Business Support Administrator!".

With admirable humility, Carly brings us crashing back down to earth, saying: "I can't make it sound any more exciting I'm afraid – that's what I do".

Seconds later it is revealed that Carly is afraid of bananas! I don't think I need to tell you what happens next!

I could go on, but you should really see it for yourself.

Defoe's SEMINAL NOVEL examines the theme of CULTURAL RELATIVISM. Despite his disgust, Crusoe feels unjust in holding the natives morally responsible for cannibalism as this practice is so DEEPLY INGRAINED IN THEIR CULTURE.

Do we apply the same thinking to regular viewers of Edmonds' own inimitable brand of early-evening light entertainment?

How do regular Deal or No Deal viewers view the Desert Island special? With genuine mirth? Detached irony? Or, like me, complete bafflement?

Pop Will Eat Itself does not espouse CULTURAL SNOBBERY.

Is it possible that Noel Edmonds is operating on an ALTOGETHER DIFFERENT PLANE to other human beings?

Two bizarre facts about Noel Ernest Edmonds from Wikipedia:

For many years Edmonds has been a believer in Spiritualism, in particular the concept of Cosmic ordering. He has claimed that he is occasionally visited by two melon-sized "spiritual energy" balls, which appear over his shoulders and which he believes to be the spirits of his dead parents. Edmonds further claims that the orbs only appear on digital photographs.

Edmonds claimed that he had stopped payment on his TV licence in early 2008, in response to the sometimes controversial methods used to enforce collection of the licence. Edmonds declared that it is wrong to "threaten" and "badger" people, in response to the collection authority's common assumption that the non-possession of a licence can mean licence avoidance, as well as the large fines which can be used as enforcement for non-payment. However TV Licensing later claimed that Edmonds actually did possess a valid current TV licence.

How does this general weirdness square with Edmonds' AVUNCULAR APPEAL?

Watch this space for more explorations into popular/ist culture and Noel Edmonds.