Bocelli: con te partirò

We attended a Bocelli concert tonight. It was an occasion I will not soon forget.

Buy Nothing Christmas

La Forme Physique

Every man dedicates his life to an ideal, a cause. A strong, well-balanced body is essential for dealing with the hazards and variable processes that nature, and the modern world, impose on us. Every individual’s situation is different, but achieving a condition of exceptional fitness is key to operating in a demanding environment, be it jungle, desert, suburbia, or modern society. It provides a constant support system for your own will and actions. The body is an instrument that one uses every day; and as with any instrument, it needs to be checked on, repaired, given adequate nourishment, and used with prudence. With a strong, fit body, you are in a position to enforce your will and realise your aims. Tomorrow belongs to you. ~ A.C.

Aedificabo et destruam: Yukio Mishima and Bodybuilding

Trench Coat Chat

One of the drawbacks of living in Southern California is the dearth of occasions on which I can deploy my heavy outerwear. I am referring to trench coats and overcoats. When friends back East complain about the rain and the snow, I mourn the loss of opportunities to take my coats out for a spin. In the past, my preferences on the whole have been equally divided between the two, depending on purpose and season. The relatively light-weight, military style of the trench coat appeals to me. The trench is perfect for long train commutes into the city or for taking a Saturday stroll along Park Avenue in early November. It is also useful if you are stalking up-to-no-gooders through the grimy streets of the 15th arrondissement of Paris. Below, I have added a brief history of the Trench Coat for your perusal:

The Battle of the Classic Outwear
by Tom Stubbs
Finch's Quarterly Review
Autumn 2009

A brief history of the Trench Coat. When the Crimean war broke out in 1854 new fangled cannon technology made charging about on horses shamefully ridiculous. Nouveau war mainly involved scrabbling about in muddy trenches. This required innovative lightweight kit and clobber, with characteristics such as freedom of movement, protection from the elements combined with elegance worthy of officer types.

Outfitters began devising suitable garb. John Emery founded Aquascutum taking its name from the Latin words for water and shield, and had begun devising shower proof wool coats. Meanwhile in Basingstoke, Thomas Burberry was putting his rainproof ‘Gabardine’ fabric to good use too, just in time for the Boer war to begin, partly inspired by the dynamic belted outwear worn by farm labourers in his area. Now components were combined to produce a versatile and multi functional technical garment.

By the time the Great War began the Trench coat had been contrived. A distinctive Raglan sleeve was used, already invented for Lord Raglan minus his arm. Additional features included a top stitched belt with D rings to hang military paraphernalia from, a storm flap fastening against wind along with a hook and eye collar fastening device, epaulettes for bag straps, and a cape styled shoulder yolk all cleverly coalesce to deliver a uniquely recognisable item of outwear. The oblong leather buckles on the belt and sleeve fastenings and two rows of horn buttons are also very much part of trench DNA.

The officers needed to look dashing as they marshalled the slaughter, so key trench coat protagonists fashion an elongated and striking looking affair. Charged with style, the cache of brave modern soldiering and excellent rain repellence, the trench became a peacetime hit, adopted by icons of screen and notables of society. The abundance of design details and form to play with has given modern designers endless scope to tweak. From very classic to extraordinary hybrids in unexpected fabrics, the trench is as rampantly important this season as any. My favourites are the more pert versions that have a set in sleeve, flaunting Raglan tradition. Stake your trench claim in our battle of the outwear.

© FQR

http://www.finchsquarterly.com/fqr-style/stubbs-style/the-battle-of-the-classic-outwear/

AK81: Always Ready

Reds Don't Surf !

Filly-in-Charge

Do you work under a female boss? I am not referring only to the bedroom, but to the office. Women managers, I have found over the years, are easily influenced and manipulated. They are highly susceptible to flattery, and easily swayed.

Female bosses are unfocused. It is a result, I think, of multi-tasking. In one bank where I worked, I knew a group of male analysts who, on being approached by the female department head with some large task in hand, would immediately ask about her weekend, or ask about her daughter who was away at boarding school, or compliment her on her hair. After a while she would leave, flattered and flustered, apparently having forgotten why she wanted to talk to the analysts in the first place. I have seen this technique work time and again.

In the past, when I had a female boss, I was usually able to use my charm and good looks to get my own way, or to obtain preferential treatment of some kind, including office sex. The trick with a female manager is, never make her forget that she is a woman first and foremost--even if she looks like your Aunt Phyllis.

Jean Raspail Collection

Jean Raspail (1925-): Frenchman, writer, traveller, explorer, thinker, King of Patagonia, prophet of demographic disaster. This (above) is how a man of the West should dress. The Beast, by contrast, is identified by his t-shirt, hoodie, white sneakers, and baggy denim trousers. As the world around us continues to slide into the muck--like a fat chick on Spring Break in Baja entering a jacuzzi with beer and nachos-with-extra-cheese in hand and a lascivious grin on her distorted face--it is a duty incumbent upon us to hold the sartorial line. For it is later than you think.

Hemingway on Mackinaw Coats

The Three-Day Blow (1925)
"Nick stopped and picked up a Wagner apple from beside the road, shiny in the brown grass from the rain. He put the apple in the pocket of his Mackinaw coat.”

“Nick put on his Mackinaw coat and his shoes. His shoes were stiff from the drying. He was still quite drunk but his head was clear.”

Islands in the Stream (1970)
“He got up from the floor and put on moccasins and an old Mackinaw coat…”

The Last Good Country (1972)
“He kissed her but she did not wake and he put on his old Mackinaw coat and felt in the packsack until he found the pint bottle of whiskey.”

“In the night he was cold and he spread his Mackinaw coat over his sister…”

Dreamhome

Parlez Nous a Boires (Dewey Balfa)

Legacy (Mansun)

New York Stock Exchange 1963

Léo Malet

Still Life: The Afternoon Of

la virilité d’un peuple

"Affaiblissement des valeurs de courage et de virilité, au profit de valeurs féminisantes, xénophiles, homophiles et humanitaires.

L’idéologie occidentale hégémonique accomplit cette dévirilisation des Européens, à laquelle ne succombent pas les colons allogènes appelés “immigrés”. L’homophilie actuelle, comme la vague féministe de la fausse émancipation de la femme, le rejet idéologique de la famille nombreuse au profit du couple nucléaire instable, la chute de la natalité, la valorisation spectaculaire du Noir ou de l’Arabe, l’apologie constante du métissage, le refus de la valeur guerrière, la haine de toute esthétique de la force et de la puissance, ainsi que la lâcheté généralisée sont quelques-uns des traits de cette dévirilisation.

Confrontés à l’islam qui prône par-dessus tout des valeurs de virilité conquérante, les Européens se trouvent moralement désarmés et complexés. Toute la conception du monde contemporaine, qu’elle provienne du législateur, de l’éducation publique, de l’épiscopat ou des médias, s’emploie à culpabiliser la notion de virilité, assimilée à une “brutalité fasciste”. La dévirilisation serait un signe de civilité, de mœurs raffinées, ce qui est un discours paradoxal de la part d’une société qui sombre par ailleurs dans le primitivisme et la violence.

La dévirilisation, qui est également liée à l’individualisme narcissique et à la perte du sens communautaire, paralyse toute réaction envers les menées des colonisateurs issus de l’immigration et du parti collaborationniste. Elle explique la faiblesse de la répression envers la délinquance immigrée, l’absence de solidarité ethnique des Européens face aux allogènes et la “peur” pathologique qu’ils éprouvent devant eux.

De surcroît, la notion de “virilité” ne doit en aucun cas se confondre avec celle de “machisme” ni avec la revendication stupide d’un quelconque “privilège social masculin”. Dans leur comportement quotidien, beaucoup de femmes se montrent plus “viriles” que bien des hommes. La virilité d’un peuple est la condition de son maintien dans l’histoire."

Pourquoi nous combattons: manifeste de la résistance européenne, Guillaume Faye, 2001

Les Nouveaux Dandys

© 2009 Monsieur

Love Plus One (Haircut 100)

Mensur

Hackett, Boulevard des Capucines, Paris

Mouthful of Rocks (Christian Jennings)

Christian Jennings attended Downside School. In 1984 he started a military career as a paratrooper in the French Foreign Legion. In this memoir, he recalls the training, the vicious routine beatings, the boozing and whoring during off-duty hours--and the scathing xenophobic views freely expressed by the various nationalities with which he soldiered. Posted to the African Republic of Djibouti, Jennings was mercilessly bullied by his immediate superior, a Spanish corporal, and went over the hill. Captured by bounty hunters while wandering across the East African desert, he found life in jail preferable to active duty in the 2nd Parachute Regiment. Given a second chance, he accompanied the regiment to France on field maneuvers and took advantage of another opportunity to desert. Successful this time, he was subsequently arrested on forgery charges and served a nine-month sentence. For the last ten years, Jennings has been a foreign correspondent covering military interventions, Special Forces operations and world conflicts in thirteen different countries. From 1999-2003 he was based in Kosovo and the Balkans and from 1994-1998 in Central Africa, where he reported on genocide, civil war, and humanitarian disasters from Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Congo. Currently, Christian Jennings works and lives in Sarajevo.

Corvus Corax

Bespoke-England

Dreamhome

Harmony in My Head (Buzzcocks)

Striped Tie Solid Shirt

There is something about the traditional regimental or club tie that precludes it from office wear. It does not appear sufficiently formal. In my position, I would not dream of wearing a regimental or club tie to the office. And yet, I do not want to give up the stripes. After all, there are only so many foulard and solid ties a man can include in his neckwear collection. With that in mind, I am quite taken with the look portrayed in the photos (above): clean, mature, professional, sharp, elegant. I have a few understated narrow-striped ties, mostly, I think, from Brooks Brothers, and I pair them with spread-collared shirts in solid white, blue, and pink. What kind of striped ties do you prefer?

فيروز‎

Tintin: One of Us

Marinetti Style