w/e 2024-11-10

Still in Essex all this week. Waiting punctuated with bursts of admin.

The government’s Tell Us Once service is a nice thing – a single place to tell various government departments and the local council that someone has died. I’ve yet to see any results, but I assume it does actually work. Although I did have to report a bug with the validation of its address input fields.

§ While in Essex I’ve continued to go swimming three times a week, enjoying being only 20 minutes walk from a nice public pool. I’ve been increasing how far I swim and now manage 2,000 metres in under an hour, with a quick breather every few lengths. I think I’ve improved my technique too, picking up tips from various TikToks, like Effortless Swimming (also on YouTube). I’d love to be able to get my average speed down to under two minutes per 100m, just because it’s a nice round number of a target, but my speed is persistently a bit over.

§ I had an afternoon in London during the week. Last time I went I spent far too long west of Regent Street but managed to balance it out this trip, spending more time in East London. I met DW for lunch and, overall, walked 19km / 12 miles.

I was hoping to buy a new smart white shirt, with arms the correct length, which is not an easy task for gangly me. This did mean heading to posh West London briefly. I skipped the most expensive ready-to-wear options like Budd (£225 upwards) and Turnbull & Asser (£295 upwards), and so started at Drake’s (£195) where the nice but slightly-too-casual shirt was obviously way too short.

Then on to Hilditch & Key (£195) where the chap said they wouldn’t have any with sleeves long enough, measuring my arms to confirm. Then Harvie & Hudson (£110), whose man commiserated with me – he was tall and thin himself – because he could instantly tell they’d have nothing to fit. He suggested Charles Tyrwhitt (£70) which is a big enough chain that they can make a wider variety of sizes and so had a shirt that fit OK.

I have mixed feelings about buying posh smart clothes. I’m not posh and smart, and the shops, their products and window displays do not in themselves make me feel at home. No matter how much you might appreciate nice clothes which – if you can afford that price level – might be handmade in the UK, it all reeks of rich Tory men.

The service is always interesting though. Hilditch & Key and Harvie & Hudson were impeccably polite, although I still felt out of place in the surroundings.

Drake’s, a bit more casual and so a bit more “me”, was friendly and made me feel welcome and at home (although he should have been able to tell in advance that their shirt would be way too short).

Even better, in my experience, is the Anderson & Sheppard Haberdashery where I once bought some lovely, and correspondingly expensive, Italian flannel trousers. Some of the clothes are, again, too Tory but the staff were just the right balance of friendly and polite that I didn’t feel out of place.

Despite the variations all these fancy places remind me what service in shops can be like when the staff are, I assume, not minimum wage employees only there for as long as they need to be. Charles Tyrwhitt, which was busy and the staff rushed, was heading more in that direction. But then you could pick up four shirts for £150 there (if you needed that many).

§ I finished watching the fourth and final season of Atlanta this week, which continued to be interesting and mostly good.

And I’ve now finished re-watching the third and fourth seasons of Parks & Recreation, still fun, although I’ve also remembered what an absolute nightmare of a co-worker Leslie is. Is she the baddy?

§ On Sunday I left Essex and headed to London where I met Mary off a late-night plane at Heathrow, back from her three week trip to Nepal. Heading home.