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

*hate underwires*

I particularly hate it when they (the underwires) come out in the wash and you cant find a place to put them back in!!!!!

X-Large tour tee shirt sleeves that get caught on door handles, fences, armchairs and passing herds of elephants ........very irritating.

Hi abbi. I have a love/hate relationship with underwires. On the one hand I can't stand the way bras with no underwires ride up. On the other hand I can't stand the wires poking me. Two solutions to this dilemma have been:

1) go bra-less.
2) make sure the wires are sewn into their pockets.

OK, we haven't mentioned girdles. The senior girls used to wear girdles. I have no idea why. They didn't serve to hold anything in. I think it was a status thing. Anyway, the dangers of wearing girdles (particularly if you had not had time to change properly before gym class) was that it would cut off the circulation to your legs.

We haven't mentioned pantyhose yet either, I don't think. (Forgive me if we have.) Loose pantyhose isn't dangerous per se, but it rides down and then you have webbed legs which limits your range of motion. Tight pantyhose cuts off your circulation, but it also causes webbed legs which limits your range of motion. Fishnet stockings catch on things which causes you to misstep and go flying.

Does anyone remember static electricity on synthetic skirts? The solution was to wear a slip. But then sometimes the slip got static electricity too. The long and short of it is that the skirt gripped your legs so tightly that you got rub marks from walking.

Sweaters knitted from loopy wool: these would snag on things, causing you to pull up short suddenly. Ani.

OK - if you must know from a guy's side - cheap boxers that he buttons work loose when you really don't want them to.

Oh Mike. I thought that one through. How painful. Ani.

Oooh Mike although I've been told that zips that jam can be painful too when going commando.

And yes, I remember nylon slips underneath nylon skirts with nylon stockings, days of high pressure, storms brewing & stroking the

Girdle - is that an American word, like corset?

Didn't corsets stop women from breathing properly and give them panic attacks (aka hysteria)?

Only if you lace them too tightly, too quickly; the art with corsets is to take it slowly, tighten 'em up a bit more each day

I do not believe a girdle is a corset. I believe a corset has stays which you lace up. I believe a girdle is an elasticized band which stops body fat from jiggling. Well, they both stop body fat from jiggling. The difference is that a corset can be pulled on quite easily (and then the stays pulled), whereas a girdle must be squeezed into. Ani.

<>

When we have summer! I'm in Auckland, and we've had nowt but cold, wet and windy and oh of course, cloud, since March... I'm too to uncover myself! Jeans and a jacket except when I am at work, when I wear a skirt, jumper and jacket.

Knitted stocking caps with bells attached to the end! D-oh! Don't make any sudden turns with people nearby. And beware of boots with stirrups. Ani.

Knitted stocking caps with bells on? I am sure i remember pictures of children with those on in books I read as a child... How cute!

When we were kids we had stocking caps with only one tail. The kids these days have stocking caps with at least two tails, and sometimes more!

OK galoshas are not dangerous per se. But what kid ever fastened the buckles? If you don't fasten the buckles and you happen to step into spring mud, the boot sticks in the mud and your foot keeps going, newly airbourne. Mind you, this could happen with any kind of footwear. It is just that galoshas give one a false sense of security. Ani.

Galoshes - that's a new one on me - I've only read about them in old books, and not sure what the buckles would do.

Are they eqivalent to "wellies" (wellington, or rubber boots used for walking in the mud e.g. farmers, working in the garden etc.).

Mike

Galoshes are rubber boots with buckles, basically. And just as dangerous as regular rubber boots in that if you get stuck in the mud there is no way you can get your galoshes out again - you end up having to remove your foot and walk home in the rain with at least - hopefully - one galosh intact.

az

Are they overshoes or to replace other footwear?

Re girdles/corsets, I always thought that corsets were to pull in the waist & promote the bust, whereas girdles were to constrain the abdomen.
Certainly no easy matter to get the latter on & off!

So what's the function of a basque (Thinking of the next Rocky Horror Show)

I'm surprised that more mention hasn't been made of bras, e.g. dangers to men trying to remove them one-handed:

Learn to undo bras," say plastic surgeons

Men should spend more time learning how to undo bra straps safely, according to doctors at St George's Hospital in London.

The team of plastic surgeons, led by Mr Andrew Fleming, has described a case where a young man needed surgery after catching a finger in his partner's bra while undoing it.

Mr Fleming, who cites the case in the British Journal of Plastic Surgery,1 said: "[We] advocate patient self-education (during the adolescent years) on the mechanism of external female mammary support, and postulate that it may be important in reducing the incidence of other such injuries."

The 27 year old male patient had presented to casualty after catching his left middle finger between the double straps of the bra of his "attractive female companion" and sustaining a forced ulnar abduction rotatory injury of the proximal interphalangeal joint.


Mr Fleming operated on the finger after an x ray film identified a fracture of the volar lip of the middle phalanx. The ruptured radial collateral ligament was also repaired. The finger was noted to have regained almost complete function at the patient's six week follow up appointment.

Although this type of injury is not uncommon, no previous cases have been described that were caused by bra removing activity. Most such injuries are either work related or caused by hyperextension while playing ball handling sports.

As many as 40% of young men have problems removing bras, and, given that not all injuries repair as satisfactorily as in this case, Mr Fleming and his colleagues suggest that patient education could prevent such injuries in the future.


Rose V, Moloney D, Fleming A. The bra-strap injury: should men have lessons? Br J Plastic Surg 2002:55:179-80.



There is also the more serious and well documented association of bra-wearing with breast cancer.

I'll put the links into the next posting.

Hi mike. I don't know about function, dude, but I do like a bit of a basque on a guy. My Dad always wore a basque. He looked pretty cool. Enuff sed? Ani.

Bra Dangers

http://seasilver.threadnet.com/Preventorium/toxicbra.htm

http://www.007b.com/bras_breast_cancer.php

http://www.studentbmj.com/back_issues/0702