h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Blokes who are old enough to know better who insist on wearing shorts in Waitrose, even in the middle of winter, they should keep their varicose veins and obscene socks to themselves. Waitrose should impose a strict dress code and bar the silly old so and so's from having free coffee. The coffee machine is too complicated for most of them anyway, they only end up spilling it. You'd think their wives would make sure that their husbands were appropriately dressed before they left home.

They can wear whatever they want.

Perhaps it is because my home town was a coastal resort, but wearing shorts in a supermarket seems perfectly normal and acceptable to me. In the last 24 hours I've worn 2 different pairs of shorts – when cycling to and from work, and when going for a run.

My view is that at the end of the day, clothes are tools that on the whole have 3 functions:

1.) To protect the wearer from the elements (and the effects the elements naturally have on their bodies).
2.) To have pockets (although not normally in socks & underwear).
3.) To preserve the appropriate degree of modesty that society currently dictates.

Of course specialist clothing, such as uniform/work clothes, space suits, maternity & sportswear etc have additional and/or alternative aims. Some people even like clothes to look nice. That's fine too. But I see no reason why an old man can't wear shorts – an established and recognised form of clothing available on sale in the majority of the country's reputable clothing outlets - in a shop. I work in a Uni and the students dress up in all sorts of things...

I did chuckle at 'obscene socks'. To me, obscenity brings to mind coarse language, pornography and/or religious sacrilege. So unless the old men in question were wearing socks emblazoned with, say, the motto 'The Virgin Mary was a Slut' and have a picture far more graphic than the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies underneath (which, being tasteless and provocative, would not be acceptable), I suspect that at the end of the day they are just socks. Even tatty knee-length socks that are a dull grey or brown worn with sandals are, at very worst, a minor but forgivable faux pas rather than an obscenity.

If varicose veins upset you, don't look at people's legs. I can't say I've ever really noticed what other people are wearing in supermarkets.

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Our local postman wears shorts in cold weather. I have to assume that exercise keeps him warm.

Oh, and hammondorgan seems to assume that the men who wear shorts in Waitrose are married. They might not be. Depending how old they are, working may be a way for them to get out and be with people, as well as earning money. On the other hand, it may be a way to get away from the wife.

Either that or it's cut-backs in the post-privatisation Royal Mail's clothing budget...

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Obscene socks do sound intriguing. I'm assuming they're something like the pens that when turned upside down they display a naked woman.

Presumably Hammandorgan is protesting about elderly gentlemen who wear socks that display naked women when turned upside down, although I do see a market for such socks.

Dragons Den here I come....

Lusus, I am an elderly gentleman, well I'm elderly, but anybody who fails to see that Argyle pattern socks are obscene unless decently covered by trousers and shoes, and even then they're someone's dark secret, of which they should be bitterly ashamed, doesn't understand what obscene means. Who would be caught on camera wearing them? Nobody, cos they're obscene, that's why, my case rests.

I live in a hot climate, with summertime highs typically about 119F/48C, occasionally going over 135F/57C and shorts with calf length socks around the house are a comfort convenience much of the time.

Of course, if doing anything, for example gardening, that may require me to get down on hands and knees, remembering that the local desert sand is about as abrasive as sandpaper, I wear long dungarees knee pads and if I'm going to be out in the sun for any very protracted time, long sleeves against sunburn.

Though I usually wear only tennis shoes around the house and in town, on a protracted desert hike it'll be boots with long dungarees bloused in the tops of the boots against burrs and thorns, insects and snakes.

Goodness me IT, I don't know whether to pity you or be jealous, I'll gladly acknowledge the need for dungarees and kneepads, and the image will stay with me a long time, but please, not in Waitrose, All the Best.

Oh, Argyle socks – why didn't you say so earlier?

They're the not-quite-tartan diamond pattern socks, aren't they? You should have mentioned that the old men in question were true Scottish and therefore wearing kilts with nothing beneath. As Lusus suggests, if they kept turning upside down (such as by doing handstands and/or cartwheels etc), that would not be appropriate supermarket behaviour and potentially obscene – especially in the fresh fruit and bakery aisles.

(I think that's something we can all agree on?)

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Maybe they were boxer shorts and the wearers were absent-minded?

I may go days at a time without shaving if all I'm doing is hanging around the house.

If I'm going to town, even if its the nearest convenience store, a mere three miles away, I shave and dress.

I've been criticized for wearing long pants rather than shorts up in Palm Springs.

I quite enjoy shaving, my kids bought me a really good sable shave brush a couple of years ago and I treat myself to nice French shave soap and balm, but nothing nay nothing will get me away from Old Spice, if someone in a fit of generosity buys me some really expensive after-shave I splash it on like anything to get through it and get back to Old Spice. I bought a cutthroat razor a while back, thought I'd be really professional, I became anaemic through blood loss, I'm back to the Bic triple! What I hate is electric razors smelly itchy things that bring you out in a rash! My brother in law gave me an electric razor that he'd brought back from abroad years ago, it kind of flew to pieces on my face first time I used it, when I looked it was 110v and I'd plugged it into the mains!

Can't say I've ever noticed my electric shaver being smelly! But then again i do clean, lubricate and maintain it, something which i don't suppose is necessary with a razor. This probably makes me less of a man but in 30 years of adulthood I've never used a real razor dunno just kind of looks dangerous and unnecessary to me, but then again i suppose I've got quite a light growth compared to some.

Last time I revealed my use of Old Spice, I was told that the 70's had called and wanted me back. And that was here on Hootoo.

PP.

I'm the opposite of Winnoch2 in that I've never used an electric razor – mainly because I've never been given one as a present and as I own ordinary razors, I've never needed to buy one...

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PHotD: spell checkers that don't ignore punctuation. I was typing on my tablet today and some words were in single quotes, 'like this'. The app I was using (WordPress) has its own spell checker that doesn't ignore the quotes, so it flags these words as wrong. I'm guessing that it sees single quotes as apostrophes.

I love the smell of Old Spice, it reminds me of my dad. It's much nicer than some of the modern stuff.

Deb

I seem to remember somewhere reading that smell is the most evocative of our senses, to this day I smell Dettol and I'm anxious, I'm not kidding, I reckon it goes back to when they used to dab it on grazes at school when the nurse used to sort you out if you hurt yourself, and it stung like mad, imagine them doing that now the NSPCC would be straight around!