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

After I'd had major surgery & was sprouting tubes & bags, I wore pj trousers a lot, but they were dark blue & looked like joggers. Easy enough to put a lightweight top on.
If you don't have the energy to put something like that on, I doubt you'd have the energy for going out to eat either.

Funnily, I feel more respectable answering the door in nightie & dressing gown than I do underwear & dressing gown. Perhaps because the nightie shows I do have something else on, whereas with underwear & gown, the underwear isn't obvious - more flesh on show.

"I went out today wearing only a pair of grey gym trunks and a white t-shirt and moccasins.... To be sure, the temperature was 107F/42C today" [ITIWBS]

When it's that hot, you do whatever it takes to be comfortable. From mid-June through mid-September I rarely wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts. Where I live, the annual temperature range can be as much as 100 degrees. Wearing the same thing year-round would be folly!

If it was that hot, I'd be covered up for protection - loose linen or cotton. There's a fairly small temperature range when I feel comfortable with bare skin!

If I am mowing my lawn in the front I also do the neighbours, we kind of take turns. Today he came out from his back garden shirtless to say he was also planning to it because he thought it was his turn. No worries I said I was happy to do it, it doesn't bother me it is not a strict rota basis.

Then he said he had a letter for me and dived inside, when he came out from the house he had put his shirt on and we passed the time of day as we usually do.

After that he came out a couple to put his garden cuttings out for compost, shirtless.

I hadn't given his shirtlessness a thought but that he put one on to come back for a chat I found rather sweet.

As for the issue of wearing her PJs to the pub, it just wouldn't have bothered me, or us, . More the reverse I suspect, and it would have been one of the stories of family lore, what we ate, what brought to the pub and the lady in her PJs

We would have probably made up all sorts of stories why she was wearing her PJs but this wouldn't have had any judgement attached to them and a whale of a time observing other people reactions

Had the staff thrown them out or refused to serve when in this case there seems no harm to be done, then we would have also left on the grounds that we would have thought it a petty and unnecessary act of inhospitality

missed words *what occasion brought us to the pub*

Regarding shirtlessness, that it is considered socially acceptable for men to go shirtless but not women says a lot, really; our society sexualises womens' bodies whilst feeling threatened by their sexuality.

Some of the women's silk pajamas from Neiman Marcus might be elegant enough to wear outside the house. Plausible deniability means that woman could deny that they really are pajamas and get away with it.

I could just about, get away with wearing my silk gown as a shirt... if it were tucked into trousers, one might just think it was* an actual shirt, hmmm.... maybe the wrong-way-round-buttons, and pinkness of it might give it away as a female gendered bit of clothing though...

Haven't had as many men, round here, by the river, etc., walking about shirtless,/topless, the last few summers... much to William's annoyance Mind.... I can't particularly see anything wrong with either women or men going topless Even though there is the singular differnce in how each is viewed, for some reason Afterall.... its just as easy to over the sight of amale chest, as it is a female on.... well, IMO...

It bothers me when people complain about women breast-feeding their babies in public. The little bit of breast that anyone would see just is not a big deal, in my opinion.

Does anyone remember the scene in "Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex" where Woody Allen is being chased a field by a giant breast?

Ricky Gervais once went to the White House in black pyjamas, because his suit was at the cleaners and it was all he had to wear. Ben Stiller was with him and was horrified. I've heard both of them tell this story separately, on chat shows, so there's no reason to doubt it. I believe they were M&S pyjamas.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/showbiz/102148/Stiller-embarrassed-by-White-House-visit-with-Gervais

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/entertainment/post/2009/05/66833925/1#.VAyQe_ldV7Q

One notable thing about shirtless men; here in the States we have a long running reality show called Cops where they follow police officers on duty in cities around the country. Any time they encounter a shirtless man you can be assured that he will go to jail. It's like the guy on the away team on Star Trek in the red shirt.

Ben Stiller says: "And Ricky Gervais, British Ricky Gervais..."

I'm not sure if he's adding British to differentiate from,say, the American Ricky Gervais, or to imply "he's British, what do you expect?".

Deb

I think he emphasizes Gervais' Britishness so Americans won't feel so bad about their inability to figure out why they don't find him funny. Also, Gervais is a French name, so Americans might expect him to speak French.

I believe he emphasized his Britishness to allude to the perception of Americans that the British are preternaturally prim and proper.

Oh and I find Ben Stiller thoroughly unfunny.

Male vs. female toplessness, summer of 1986 I was attending Army basic training at Ft. Jackson, SC.

My basic training battalion had a female company attached.

The entire battalion went to a local stadium for the 4th of July Independance d
Day celebrations.

There was a male cheering team among the performers and at a certain point, the male cheer leaders threw off their shirts.

The female company attached to my battalion screamed.

The men were silent.




Myself, I rarely go topless in public.

I even wear a top when swimming, for practical reasons.

I sunburn easily.

I wear long sleeves when I have to work out of doors for prolonged periods, even in the torrid summers of the Colorado Desert where I live, for the same reason.

Sunburned arms at the end of the day are no joke.

"Americans won't feel so bad about their inability to figure out why they don't find him funny"

I'm not American, and NOBODY should feel bad about not finding Ricky Gervais funny because he seriously isn't.

He was funny for a couple of weeks circa 1995, but he's long since been a tiresome bore.

"I find Ben Stiller thoroughly unfunny." [Baron Grim]

I think that he's "rarely" funny. He has his moments every so often. He's sort of a latter day Buster Keaton in that he keeps up a brave front no matter how bad things get. I just think that Keaton was funnier.

'There are some terrible proper Bostonians who think no self-respectable man should ever wear shorts on city streets.'

How do these people react to the Boston Marathon?

(I don't find Ben Stiller or Ricky Gervais particularly funny either)

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