Should I feel guilty for buying my kids secondhand school clothes? They’re in very good condition — no doubt donated by kids who have legitimately had no use for them anymore because they’ve grown or left the school. $2 per item, about 90% cheaper than buying new. Reduce, re-use, recycle, right? So I’m covering 2 Rs and saving money.

Yet because it’s not something I’ve tried before, I’ve got little pangs of guilt. But I’ve chucked them into the wash cycle and no doubt will have forgotten about it in a day or two, when everything’s mixed-up and nobody can tell what’s “new” and what isn’t.

My dad didn’t wear ties during the later part of his working life, and certainly doesn’t now he’s retired. So I was taught to tie a tie by Norm, who worked at Hattams in Elsternwick when we bought my first school uniform for Melbourne High, in summer ‘84-’85.

I’ve been thinking for a while about switching from a Pratt Knot to a Windsor Knot, the latter apparently resulting in a bigger, more symmetrical knot… even if James Bond apparently declared it to be “the mark of a cad”.

I found clear instructions at Tie-a-tie.net and tried them a couple of times last week. The knot itself is pretty easy actually, just a teensy bit more involved than a Pratt knot. As always, it’s the lengths that were troublesome on my initial attempts, so I stuck with my traditional knot.

But Tony laid down the challenge on Sunday, and that’s finally spurred me into action.

Monday: Day one: Gave the thin end almost nothing at all, and it tied okay with the length about right. The knot is arguably aesthetically better, but not terrific, and I wonder if this works better with a tie that’s thicker, and hasn’t been tied the old way for a couple of years.

Tuesday: Day two: With my spiffy new silk tie, it works much better, though it took three attempts to get the length right. A nice, big knot, which doesn’t move around. Not quite as symmetrical as one might hope, but a big improvement over the old method. (Mind you, I found it wasn’t quite aligned right when I did a TV interview at lunchtime, but that may have been because it was blowing a gale at the time.)

Wednesday: Day three Okay, this isn’t too bad. I think I’m getting used to this now.

See the challenges us blokes go through to get a tie looking really nice?

I get some terrific comments on this blog. Quite a few of them, too. The database reckons over 6000, though I think there might be some suspected spams in there. Then again, there are some old comments from 2003 that haven’t been imported into Wordpress yet.

Here’s some followups on some recent comments, and on my own recent posts.

On ties. Biff commented on the niceness of silk ties. I concur, in fact over the years I’ve steadily retired the polyester ones and migrated to silk — all those I wear regularly are silk, most of them woven. Nice. I still haven’t learnt how to do a Windsor knot though.

Stitch Sista commented that bow ties were invented for scientists and doctors who couldn’t have ties dipping into things. Fair call. Doesn’t explain why some desk jockeys wear them though.

Roger doesn’t like the phrase “heads-up”. I wouldn’t say I’m overly moving towards Americanisms (assuming it is an Americanism), though I do sometimes call my kids “guys”. As my sister has argued in the past, you can resist to a certain extent, but the nature of language is that it’s a developing, evolving beast, inheriting things from all around.

Flerdle remarks on a school bell that was an actual bell, rather than electronic like the one at my primary school. Marita remarked upon this too (small school in the country) and that on sunny days they would listen to Let’s All Sing outside on the teacher’s car radio.

I wrote about emergency undies. The other day I wore the emergency shirt, when the one I’d intended on wearing (last one in the cupboard) lost a vital button at the last minute.

Not a comment here, but Josh ponders Buying vs Renting.

Oh, and I thoroughly enjoyed Life On Mars last night on the telly. Made me want to dig out all that old daggy 70s music again. And I wonder if I still have that video of The Sweeney around somewhere?

PS. After Life On Mars I had a sudden urge to listen to Cream’s White Room, but couldn’t find it on my ipod. Realised with horror that I don’t have it. May have to go CD shopping at lunchtime.

Does everybody have a pair of emergency underpants? You know, the undies that are not actually unwearable, but are far from preferable? Not actually falling apart, but maybe the elastic’s stretched just a teensy bit too far, or they were a new brand you purchased that didn’t turn out to be as comfortable as your “old reliable” brand.

You don’t want to chuck them out, so you keep them as the emergency undies. You’d rather not wear them when there’s others available, but when the laundry schedule goes all screwy and there’s nothing else available, they’re certainly better than nothing.

(Ladies may also have an emergency bra.)

At the other end of the spectrum are the favourites. Exceptionally comfortable, perhaps, or just deemed to be lucky. Yes, the lucky undies. Alas, their very status works against them, as through wear and tear, they gradually descend to the status of emergency-only.

You go out and buy some more, and the cycle begins again.

Ties are essentially useless. Purely decorative. I bought one yesterday. Nice.

What I can’t quite come to terms with is men who wear bow ties for everyday business-wear. It just looks wrong. It’s like they’re trying to scream “I’m whimsical!!”

(Awaiting comments from all my bow tie-wearing readers…)

Following up from yesterday… In many cities, it’s common for white-collar male workers to wear shirt+tie, though casual Friday is becoming more popular in some companies.

For some people, it appears that even the suit jacket is compulsory, including on the hottest days. From what I can see, this primarily seems to include (male) politicians and TV journalists.

On weekends some of them doff the tie but keep the jacket on. Ditto when they go to the country.

Perhaps the very expensive jackets (worn by presidents and prime ministers) have water cooling inside or something, so the occupant doesn’t end up sweating like a pig?

I can understand why some white-collar women wear runners on their commute given how uncomfortable and impractical some of the shoes they wear around the office look.

I don’t understand why some men feel the same way though. It’s not like they wear platform shoes or high heels at work. (Unless their work is odder than they appear.) While it’s certainly possible to buy men’s shoes that are uncomfortable, most of them tend to be fairly comfortable most of the time, are no problem when walking fast or running, and certainly don’t leave a risk of falling over.

Seems to me that runners with business clothes look pretty awful.

(Awaiting the onslaught of angry comments from 4WD-with-bullbar owning, smoking men who wear runners with business clothes, and their apologists.)

I’m not going to name names, but it seems this needs spelling out.

Ladies, DO NOT pull a gentleman’s tie. It’s not funny. It’s just annoying.

A tie is a highly-tuned precision garment. Sometimes it’s a great deal of effort to get it looking just right. Sometimes it’s even a great deal of effort to get it looking even half-decent. You mess with it and it’ll be uncomfortable and look awkward until it’s pulled off and completely re-tied.

So please don’t.