Time In Tweed: Some Frightening Statistics

I’ve spent over half my life – a quarter of a century - wearing woman’s tweeds: Twenty-five years in a pair of trousers that, even though my weight has fluctuated, have always appeared too big for me. Perhaps that’s the problem: you should never just step into someone else’s trousers; think yourself so manly that you can step-in and fill somebody else’s trousers just like that – especially a complete stranger’s, and particularly if she’s a woman. I was full of meat when I first stepped into them in 1984 (inside a hollow tree without a mirror); I’m a vegan now (see “Dropped Trousers, 19/11/09, before continuing).

Notice my chicken-leg-like left thumb, in this one-arm-pull-up photograph (in another ill-fitting pair of trousers), taken in the Baden Wurttemberg (bratwurst country) in 1987. I was turning; part ape and part chicken. And too many chicken (hormones) seemed to be bringing out 'the woman'.  I had to turn vegan.

1989

Over the intervening years I’ve filled my appropriated tweeds in different places, but never in the right places at the right (same) time.

2009

Time and tweed: Let’s start with the lap: 15 partners (girlfriends not solicitors) have all sat on the lap at one time or another; so have 5 different laptops - all Mac's (but this isn't going to degenerate into a 'dirty mac and holes in the pockets' tale - no, I'm giving you statistics - facts). The pockets have held the keys to 2 cars: a Mini and a Volvo (a steady blue Volvo, bought secondhand from a girlfriend’s ex-husband) and the keys to 4 houses and 3 flats. These pockets (now holed) have mostly held my hands however; but it’s more complicated (unbalanced) than that.

I’ve only ever performed one-arm-one-finger-pull-ups (OFPs) with my right, middle-finger, which means the right pocket must have collected far more detached calluses than the left pocket, which only collects calluses from two-arm-pull-ups (TAPs). Look at this callus, it's about to fall off.

Either way, I always find calluses in the pockets when I come to wash them. Talking of pulling: since taking possession of the trousers I must have done close to 1,000,000 two-arm-pull-ups (an average of 100 TAPs a day is normal, making 25 years worth add up to 912000); I also manage 15 one-arm-pull-ups a day; so that makes 137000 OAPs; and injuries permitting, I usually perform at least 5 one-finger-pull-ups before I go to bed; so that’s 46000 OFPs.

Between all this pulling the trousers have been puffing: My tweeds must have secondary smoked at least 146000 cigars (tweed is very absorbent). This calculation is based on my daily intake of Panther cigars creeping up, from around 10 cigars day in 1984, to 20 per day at present - that’s £73000 spent on cigars! But think what I’ve saved on trousers.

The trouser-seat has seen very little in the way of action; I haven’t bought a sofa (or a chair for that matter) since I’ve worn tweed. This is ironic, since I saved them from a cyclist – their seat would have been the first to go. And despite all the cigars I’ve smoked in and around the trousers (not that I’ve smoked with the trousers on my head, mind) I’ve only burned one hole  – look – in the left knee: 146000 cigars and only one knee burn – not bad. But grass burns, on the other hand… No, there’s not the time or space.