Be Excellent To Each Other

Decided I needed a new shirt. Went online to look at M&S and Next where I have got shirts in the past. All I want is a fairly plain colour, perhaps a dark red in a decent quality.

Can I get one? Can I fuck! All the shirts either have revolting colours, stupid patterns or in the case of Next have mobile phone breast pockets that make you look like AN UTTER TWAT!

Some of the designs in Next look like they are actually taking the piss. Shirt and tie combos that Steve Wright wore when presenting Top Of The Pops in 1984.

So with M&S and Next ruled out, who next to go to online?

Now I know how JNT must have felt*. The whole world is wrong!



* For the Who fans out there. Both of you.

What does a mobile phone breast pocket look like?

Here you go.

http://www.next.co.uk/shot.asp?extra=sch&b=X44&p=2402&s=12&n=Men&pid=487-167&exclude=00K00&returnurl=%2fsearch%3fp%3dQ%26lbc%3dnext%26uid%3d620962274%26ts%3dv7%26w%3dmens%2520shirts%26af%3d%26isort%3dscore%26method%3dand%26filter%3dsubset%253a3003%26nxtv%3d0%26nxti%3d0&bct=%26quot%3bmens%20shirts%26quot%3b

People who wear a shirt with one of those deserve to (lead long and healthy lives - Ed).

Shall I be the first to point out that this shirt has no visible breast pocket?

Firstly the reply buttons have disappeared. Only the top one remains. I can only assume this is a mod conspiracy to stop me getting a shirt I like.

Secondly, what do you call that stupid mobile phone pocket thing on the left breast then?

Thirdly, I expect the entire forum to crash in about, oooohhh, 30 seconds.

I can reply to my own posts.

Like I said, a mod conspiracy.

That is the sleeve. Note the buttons. Shirts are folded like that for display purposes to show whether it is a double cuff or single cuff.

Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh. I see.

The pocket, were there one, would be on the other side.

Man, those Summers spent working in Top Man weren't wasted!!!

Well thank you for clarifying. I feel like a right tool.

Doesn't help much with the appalling colours on offer but at least I;m now not ruling shirts out based on a non existent pocket.

You're trying to find a shirt with question marks on the collar?

I have all my (work) shirts made for me.

Next and M&S, et al, are all shite and, even if I liked the shirts they have, they don't fit around the neck. They only stock up to 18" and I am a 19", so that's me fucked. It's the same with Gieves & Hawkes and TM Lewin - they don't go above 18", but they do make really nice shirts.

being an 18 inch neck i have problems too. Why don't you just go to a shop.

No, the most lurid Hawaiian shirt available.

i detest shirt styles these days. Shop seem to assume that all men are slim-hipped razorlight wannabees with the same colour tastes as timmy mallet. I'm only a 16" neck though, so at least i can shop in matalan

This is the sort of thing I love to read in the morning.

Top comedy.

Indeed. Roffles and syrup!

Sorry, chinny, I'm still chuckling about this.

Next time on Chinny goes shopping:

"GOD! Why the HELL do Topshop sell shirts with pins designed to stab you in the throat? Do they really expect people to wear these ALL DAY?"

Sorry what is a mobile phone pocket

"All I want is some plain trousers for work and all they sell is shorts:

http://www.next.co.uk/shot.asp?extra=sc ... p;Trousers

WHO WOULD WEAR THOSE???? "

M&S have a lovely range of shirts in a nice thick but lightweight cotton. Annoyingly none of them have a breast pocket at all. Gits.

I much prefer shirts without breast pockets.

Then you don't have enough stuff. Get more stuff.

you have to pens in a case in your pocket... lol

Some shirts, the material is so thin that the breast pocket is useful for hiding one of your nipples, at least.

Anyone who uses a breast pocket for storing pens is a fool.

The breast pocket is for your phone, duh.

Or an american.

It reminds me of man on wire, where he was talking about his disguise and apparently pens in the breast pocket were "Most important".

Hehehe


I have a nice M&S shirt which does have a pocket. It may be that you'll need to go to a shop and try one on, annoying though it may be.

I always used it for my cigarettes.

Yeah - who buys shirts over the internet?

In other news, I bought a pair of cord jeans yesterday. From Gap, no less. I feel like a disgrace.

No.. as it falls out if you bend over... jeans or suit jackets pockets are for phones!!

Who carries anything in a breast pocket? Even a tissue in there and I start getting bothered by it.

It's easy to get to in a breast pocket, and doesn't get battered by whatever other miscellany you have in your trouser pockets.

@Kovacs - Your problem is clearly too much bending over.

Quite. Was there food on the floor, or something?

I can't remember it has been so long since I used my pocket for my phone!!

Don't you steal them anyway? I thought most of you were shirt lifters.

Anyone who doesn't want to spend three hours trudging hopelessly around town surveying the 300 vile checkered and/or pastel shirts on offer in the hope of finding something halfway wearable as their 'morale' and 'respect for humankind' meters tick inexorably down to nothing.

I've only ever seen tat like that in the trendy shops. Go to a proper suit shop and you don't tend to get that trouble, at least not around here. If I want casual shirts, I have a look around the surf shops — Billabong do a couple of nice ones, as does the shop 'White Stuff' which also, excellently, has squirrel-headed mannequins.

As I don't have to wear shirts for work, I only have three - a white one, a black one, and stripey one.
Hurrah me!

What?
/

Chinny, you have made me smile.

I think that plain shirts look strange without pockets much of the time. They look even stranger if they are made from polycotton, as then their tendency not to crease at all makes the shirt like an unreal expanse of smooth, unnatural colour. I don't really like plain shirts on a man anyway, but for a work shirt I think pockets just help to break it up. of course, it doesn't matter under a jacket or any other garment, but if you are wearing a shirt alone it sometimes makes the shirt look a bit cheap if it is just straight, plain, not pocketed.

You don't have to actually use the pockets, but they just give the eye something to settle on, and hide pokey-out nipples when it gets cold.

I have two so beat that.

I break in and steal yours when I need to wear a shirt. So nerr.

actually I prefer wearing shirts to anything on most days

I used to have 35 shirts but got half that now!!

17 and a half shirts?

Yes a few have short sleeves..

Does that refer to his inability to buy Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy sensible clothes for Christmas?

BHS employee circa 1980's: "Sorry sir, we only have these suits in rainbow colours. Can I interest you in a punctuation-marked umbrella? Great hit with the yuppies this season."

JNT: "Damnation!"

Michael Grade (walking past): "HA HA!"

etc.