Midlife crisis alert - The perfect jacket

I saw a Paul Smith jacket in the Style section of the Times magazine, (what can I say, I accidentally opened the wrong bit of the paper, while searching for the cartoon section. An easy mistake to make with the 100+ sections in the average weekend papers these days) it looked perfect for someone attempting to track down a midlife crises, so I decided my mission was to add it to my wardrobe. This proved more difficult then I had hoped, despite advertising the jacket, it was apparently more rare then a Liverpool domestic away win. None of the Paul Smith shops admitted to stocking it, nor any of the concessions in the large department stores. Eventually one was found, in a locked basement room in head office, behind a filing cabinet. I got very excited when I discovered it was in a Large size, marvellous, so off I went to collect my bounty. The jacket was perfect in every way except for the colour (dark green in the magazine, luminous green in reality, useful for working on the underground but not much else) price (well it is one of a kind, apparently) and size (I doubt this would have been considered large in Japan) needless to say I returned home, sad and dejected. I had to console myself with an inappropriate Ipod speaker purchase(1) instead.

(1)An inappropriate purchase is the type of purchase that while essential from my point of view is somewhat frowned upon by Mrs B. Another example of inappropriate purchasing was the second Gazebo(2), which I definitely felt was essential, while Mrs B's eyes glaze over and the look appear on her face that means change the subject, so moving on....

(2) Before any one starts to call me Niel "Two Gazebo's" Black I must point out that I have found a good home for the first Gazebo
The more observant of you will notice that this is not actually a green jacket nor is it me (Mrs B thinks I am getting that way but I put it down to my winter coat, which admittedly I fail to shed every spring...Hmmm moving swiftly on). It is in fact the only photo I could find that demonstrates a badly fitting garment. I would like to think that I would have looked better in the tight fitting green Jacket, even though I was having difficulty moving yet alone breathing. If you see any cat walk pictures, comfort in garments is the last thing that any self respecting clothes designer has in mind......

McG - Climbing the walls
McG had a bit of a turn on Friday night and went off like a small sticky child(3) on a sugar rush, jumping up on the kitchen side boards (4), attacking the bins and licking the kitchen floor(5), much to Mrs B and my embarrassment, as we had a guest. He was rebuked umpteen times before being banished from the kitchen. I felt a bit guilty when I discovered Saturday morning that neither of us had got around to feeding him, but he did get his revenge by making off with one of the croissants we were going to have for breakfast.

(3) all be it one that had spent the day rolling around on the floor of a hairdressing salon for Ginger customers.

(4) Normally he waits until we are out of the room before attempting food raids, sadly for him the small earth tremor is a bit of a give away as he jumps down.

(5) who needs a swiffer when you have a McG

Poor McG with hardly enough energy to move. He was upto 99.9% sleep levels after his energetic demonstartion over the lack of food

Pink Friday
Why is it that the majority of women in the office failed to find any pink in their wardrobe, while most of the blokes, myself included, found pink a plenty for Breast awareness day. A fairly strange concept this one, half the population have them while the other half don't, I would however hazard a guess that most people are aware of them (6) especially those with out.

(6) Mrs B feels Kearer Knightly should definitely be made aware of them, but I feel that is just out of spite.

Kaiser Chiefs
Yet another gig, this week as I dragged Mrs B along to see the Kaiser Chiefs at the Brixton Academy, most enjoyable and as an added bonus we got back to the car to find we still had 4 wheels and an intact roof . It was while watching the bouncers grab hold of the little rat scullions who were bodysurfing their way towards the stage (I was sad that no one was attempting to bodysurf the balcony) and an early exit from the venue, that got me thinking about the argument currently doing the rounds about the employment of scale challenged members of society. Lets face it there is not much call for undersized bouncers, where would Hackney Marshes be with out lardy men with fag in mouth wheezing their way up and down muddy football pitches on Sunday afternoons and as a final argument, is the world ready for never ending Opera's, I don't think so....... and as the woman in the size 40 dress is now wobbling her way to the centre of the stage to herald the end of another BlackLOG - historical – if you have enjoyed it please pass it on to anyone you know who might also enjoy it. You can also tune into the up-to-date version BlackLOG.