ISpyShanghai

Movember Moustache

Quick recap for anyone who only checks in here once a week:

• All November (AKA “Movember”) I’m growing a moustache
• It’s for charity - with the money going to Prostate Cancer research
• f you donate to me you get a password to view a special post where you’ll see how the moustache looks today

Now admittedly, growing a moustache isn’t hard- no harder than growing nose hair in fact- but it is very very annoying.

When I eat soup I have to wipe the thing down after every spoonful, it tickles my nose when I’m asleep, and more than anything I have to really watch what kind of clothes I wear with the damn thing.

There doesn’t seem to be any reason to it, but when I wear certain shirts or jeans I look either like a Spartak Moscow fan, or Mr Gay UK 1985.

[N.B I'm not talking about new, cool, "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" / Tom Ford / Toby Maguire kind of gay, but oldschool  Freddie Mercury / "The Blue Oyster" bar kind of gay. Not a good look.]
It’s a minefield, and I’m struggling to get through it to the end of the month.

Luckily though a young man called Nige has come to the rescue.

Nige writes:

Dear James,
I was recently strolling through the backstreets of Shinjuku when I saw a familiar Italian Plumber: (Super) Mario.

Knowing that his bushy moustache is very close to your own personal style, I decided to follow him and pick up some fashion tips.

After a few streets or running and bouncing his head off bricks, Mario dived into a traditional Japanese Onsen to jump on some mushrooms and have a quick soak.

Here is a photo of the shoes he left at the door.

All the hairy chest,
Nige

Super Mario Golf Shoes

Thanks Nige.

So now I know which shoes go with the ol’ soup strainer, it’s just a matter of tracking them down in Shanghai.

How does this image make you feel?

 

Iggy Pop with- well let's say it's his au pair

I mean honestly, deep down.

How does it make you feel? 

I’m sorry you had to see that. If I was you, I wouldn’t look at this idiot wearing Crocs either.

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

Last night I could barely sleep a wink as I was feeling so guilty for living a lie. For over a day now I’ve been lying to you, you who would never tell a lie to me.

I feel like I can never rest until I tell the world what really happened at the weekend, and so to quell my conscience (and stretch out this Shoe Tuesday nonsense for yet another week) I’ve decided to come clean about what happened last Friday.

Whilst dressed as John McClane from the Die Hard Trilogy + Die Hard 4.0: Live Free Or Die Hard- but more specifically the first film, simply entitled “Die Hard” I did not have bare feet.

The party was in a nightclub; there were cigarettes, shattered glasses and drunken feet everywhere. Going barefoot would have been like a very minor form of foot-specific suicide.

Instead, I cheated with a cut off stocking / pop sock and one of Emma’s weird Bamboo insoles. 

It was dark and smoky inside the club so no-one could see my dark and terrible secret. Also, as previously mentioned- no-one had a frigging clue who I was supposed to be anyway.

This barefoot look is a winner though, and I suspect that by next summer- everyone will be doing it. The price of flimsy pop socks will sky rocket, and newspapers will be full of stories about kids using superglue or nail guns to attach insoles to their feet. 

To the parents of those children, I would like to apologise in advance and plead with governments around the world to do all that they can to stop the pop sock madness of Summer 2009.

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

You might know this and then again you might not, but either way-I used to live in Korea. I was there for three years and had a splendid time. 

High Heel Scooter

When I first arrived I thought the place was kind of backwards in the fashion stakes- the middle aged men there wear their belts higher than I thought humanly possible, and most of the guys my age had pointy shoes that extended 9 inches past the end of their toes for that Rumpelstiltskin vibe.

Strawberry Slipons

Now though, Korea is something of a fashion leader in asia and it’s very common to see hangeul writing on jeans / handbags and t-shirts for dogs here in Shanghai.

I haven’t been back for a while but I keep abreast of all the latest trends by looking at the flickr stream of close personal e-friend / flickr contact / guy I’ve never actually met Superlocal.

Superlocal’s job seems to involve doing what I do for a hobby: finding weird stuff in asian cities. Presumably in his spare time, he sits in 3 hour meetings about airport information systems.

Shoe Slippers

The photos below are some of his captures from the whacky world of Korean footwear- if you want more, I highly recommend having a gander at his stuff on flickr http://flickr.com/photos/superlocal.

Shoe Tongs

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

So Emma’s gotten herself a new job, and to celebrate she went to M&S and bought some new gear for work.

One of the things she bought was a new handbag…

 (note: apparently it’s not cool to buy handbags from M&S, but if Em doesn’t want her dark fashion secrets splashed all over the internets, she really has to take out some sort of restraining order).

Just an ordinary bag?

I don’t have an eye for such things but it seems like a nice enough bag to me.

Why, though, did Emma giggily inform me that it got a “Standing ovation*“  from a group of Chinese women she showed it to in an elevator yesterday?

Answer after the break.

*a standing ovation has slightly less impact when the audience is already standing, but let’s play along OK?

Continue Reading »

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

On my recent trip to the UK to visit my brother’s new youngling I didn’t go empty handed.

Me making the blanket

I took him a full loaf of gingerbread, a coupon for 20p off Cranberry Juice, and a handmade patchwork blanket.

To be fair, 75% of the work on the blanket (OK, OK, 95%!) was done by Emma- I just cut out a couple of things and drew a few lines on the material before exploding into a fit of rage

(have you ever tried to draw a 75cm straight line, on a piece of cotton which keeps stretching and moving around? With an HB pencil? Whilst kneeling on a wooden floor? With a hangover? It’s not as fun as it sounds).

Still though, I’m happy to stake whatever claim I can to the finished product- it’s a little smasher.

Have a look here if you don’t believe me.

One thing that we should mention here though, is that what is good for babies is not necessarily good for adults. Peeing on your parents, drinking milk straight from the *cough* tap, and lying around on the carpet grabbing your toes are all fine when you’re a baby- but try it on your 18th birthday and you’ll get in trouble.

Similarly, all-in-one cotton romper suits, hats with teddy bear ears and (really, I cannot stress this enough) knitted boots may be cute on infants, but they are never, ever a good look for adults.

Knitted boots

Spotted (but presumably not bought) by Andy Best at Metro Town Mall, Zhongshan Park.

Are you new to Shoe Tuesday?
Do you find it slightly odd?
Do you wonder how it all started?
Are you avoiding doing some work?

Then catch up now with Every Shoe Tuesday Ever!

Blanket.jpg

No Shoe Tuesday music today- it’s too loud.

I am sick today- my stomach is making noises like a Galleon rolling on the high seas and my tongue is covered in brown fur. It’s either something I ate recently, or the toll taken by changing meal times constantly whilst jet-setting between England and here.

(The food in England was excellent by the way, Smoked Mackerel, real ale, clotted cream and scones every day).

The one thing that’s pulling me through is the thought that I’m shaping shoe fashion for the ages, as I’m sure you already know.

When I was back in the UK there was a story about Victoria Beckham (ex-Bananarama, wife of Gary Lineker) wearing a pair of painful looking heelless shoes. No doubt I don’t even have to mention that she got the idea from this post.

Beckham's shoes

Old news

Then when strolling through the arcades of People’s Square subway station (birthplace of all fashion) I came across not one, but two Shoe bags.

I may be ill, but I’m still sick with the shoe fashion yo.

<cue Shoe Tuesday music>

The Good

I challenge anyone to find shoes cooler than the ones on the bottom of this picture.

At the cobblers where I had my suitcase fixed I reckon they could make me a decent copy, but would I have the cojones to wear them around town?

If you tried walking into The White Bear (a pub) in Doncaster town centre with these on, you’d get your head bust in and the men in white coats would come to take away your bloodied remains.

The Bad

There’s a cool old soul song called “High Heel Sneakers“-

Put on yo’ high heel sneaker!/
an’ put yo’ wig hat on yo’ heaaad!

The guy who wrote it died from inhaling fumes whilst he varnished his floor.

Anyway, the point is, these shoes are vile.

The Curly

I went to Constantinople last year and didn’t see a single person wearing one of these.

Called the British Embassy to complain, but they didn’t want to know.

Typical.