Wednesday 23 April 2014

Never Say Never


Here is a picture of our new car


Click here

and check out the final paragraph to discover why I'm not all that thrilled.

Saturday 12 April 2014

Postscript No 2

We were in town this afternoon and 'just happened' to walk past the shop that sells Yoshi bags. Actually given how small our major town is its hard to do any shopping without walking past almost every  shop that there is. But I digress. Or justify myself. Or something.
 
Anyway, we walked past the bag shop, and in fact I may even have wandered into it, and discovered that the bag I have been coveting has not only disappeared from the window display but  has totally gone from the shop.
 
Given that I was (honestly) never going to buy it, I should feel much less irritated by this than I do. The OH thought it may have been bought by the lovely Victoria, she of the very useful local shop and the rude comments about my carrot cake frosting, and if this is so I shall try very hard not to mind, if only because, if it has a local home, I might get to gaze upon it from time to time.

Postscript No 1

I was reminded, not long after posting my previous piece about the designer bags, of a program I saw once on television when a man  pronounced with no trace of irony or shame that when he was introduced to people the first thing he did was check out what watch they were wearing. Because if they weren't wearing a really expensive one, like Cartier or Patek Phillipe then 'I know they're not the sort of people I want to know'.

It didn't seem to occur to him that  probably a large proportion of the people he felt he didn't want to know because they didn't wear designer timepieces probably didn't want to know him because he judged people by how much money they had and what they spent it on.

Thursday 3 April 2014

Yoshi, Yosh, Yoshi - oy oy oy

So just to be clear, although it should come as no surprise to regular readers, I don't do designer stuff. To quote the man from Radio 4's Down the Line - 'What is point? What is point of designer label?' That pretty much sums up how I feel about the whole thing.
 
I've nothing against quality, I've nothing against buying things that I like, but buying stuff with a logo just because of the logo, and giving someone who can afford to pay for it some free advertising into the bargain - just not me.
 
So why then do I have not one but two Yoshi bags and why am I hankering after a third? (I won't get the third one, I just like it)
 
This was my first.
 
I think it's called Shop Til You Drop

 
Anyway I saw it in a shop in Kirkwall when we were buying shoes for Son No 2 and fell in love with it, and either you can see why or you can't, there's no explaining. It was what I might describe as Not Cheap, although it didn't reach triple figures, and OH bought it for me a few days later for my birthday. And a little later on when I earned a bit of cash from some copywriting that I did, I treated myself to a matching wallet.
 
 When I got the bag home there were all sorts of tags and tissue and bits of card in envelopes inside it, which I suppose are all part of making you feel that you haven't squandered an unthinkable amount of money on a handbag you can really only use when it's not going to rain. There was also a 'Certificate' with a number on it. No 85 out of a 100. And stuff about the company who made the bag, which is called Yoshi and apparently is some sort of fusion between Japanese design principles and British Craftsmanship.
 
Now here's the thing. I don't care. I don't give a fig for any of that. I bought the bag because I liked it. If I hadn't liked it, it could have been rarer than hen's teeth and only £10, but I still wouldn't have bought it just because it was a Yoshi bag. All the gubbins - I say again - What is point?
 
My other Yoshi is a black satchel type bag (nattily lined in cerise which is attractive) and can be glimpsed in the photo of The Irresistible Bear here . I bought it because it is big enough to put A4 stuff in it. So it's useful for taking to uni/supervisor's meetings without looking like a briefcase. Because briefcases are just a bit  - what? I don't know. But I don't want to be seen with one.
 
So there you go. My one unwitting foray into the world of designer bags and limited editions. And the worst of it is - all that teasing of my sister over her Radley obsession?  I've had to give that up.