The best of the most pointless rows brew up there, and this week it was the turn of the self appointed fashion police under Gript’s Fatima Gunning and her loathing of what she would call chavs (aka neds and nyeucks to the rest of us) dressing in nightclothes in a supermarket.
It is one of the major - according to herself - issues of our time that came to her attention … of folk, plebs, wearing nightwear to when they go shopping!
A couple of folk, minding their own business, were photographed without their knowledge, and their image shared online mocking their dress. Apart from GDPR, there is harassment and incitement to hatred concerns with that. And that is under existing laws, not the new proposed hate speech laws.
An exchange of comments flowed over and back where Fatima doubled down on her comments, and others joined her with the message of “degeneracy” applied to innocent people out doing a bit of shopping just because they are not in Dolce & Gabbana or a collar and tie.
The fact that it was not folk in jammies but folk in suits that bankrupted the state is lost on this saviour of our culture, nor were the folks who evicted her family for wearing pyjamas.
The basic idea revolves that if someone is in pyjamas that they are antisocial, and that apparently they wouldn't be if they wore a collar and tie. It's a modern extension of the hoodie issue from the 1990’s, where the Sunday World brilliantly trolled Michael Noonan with the headline “Blueshirts Out - Blue Hoodies In.”
Fatima, if she read the works of Nuala O'Faolain would know that not all girls in dresses and lace are good girls, such a dawsie from North Longford I tell of below:
I know of a girl from up my lane - who I had never heard of as a kid who was told all things about Longford - who was well known for her love of dresses, and looking well. This passion, which Fatima would be fascinated with, started with spending the money stolen from her parents in Liverpool with the finery of the day, as she made her way to America.
Being from Longford, she took the roundabout route, walking to Belfast, getting to America from there via a ship to Liverpool.
If that was all she did, it would be bad enough, but when Longford do bad girls, they do the baddest in the world, and this lady went on the be a badger, a pickpocket and a pioneer in the blackmailing of men who gave in to their urges whether married or not. She could box like a fella, was responsible for at least one man taking his own life… and to cap it off was a lookout during the American Express robbery in Paris, which was not surpassed until the Great Train Robbery.
Thats about as degenerate as you get.
But thats all OK as she never wore nightwear to a shop.
So, in delving into pyjamas, to back up my belief that like bungalows and curry they are an import from India that came to the West under the Raj… I found out not alone was that true, but indeed in its native area from Persia / Iran to India is is indeed a normal streetwear.
Others in replying tweets went a lot farther, faulting leggings and yoga pants and sportswear among other things. Its a bit late of a whinge now, that conversation should have been in the 1970’s!!!
I never wear nightwear out myself, but I have no issue with those who do. Being a bloke I don't wear leggings (honest! - I don't have the legs for them!!!). And the striking thing was that with most of what was faulted it was predominantly but not exclusively women's attire held to ridicule by the replying tweeting mob.
We talk about Iran and the Burqua, well our own fashion police,if they are let have their say, will not alone have our women wearing heads carfs again en masse but also petticoats and good sensible non-sexual wooden clogs.
One of the main areas I pulled her up on was how English - with all due respects to the actual English - Fatima and Co seem to want us to be. She lauded the poor who tried to dress up as the rich to appear better than they were, and even back then they were the subject of snide remarks for being trying to be better than others they looked down on.
If she saw how the actual Irish Gaelic dress was, she would have a stroke. Yes, its 15th century so not very macho, but still. She would be clutching her faux-pearls!
Pride And Prejudice
In invoking if Ireland is all about pride, why do we not have pride in how we look? Well, you say what Fatima thinks to anyone in a trakkie or jammies in a supermarket and the fat lip you get will tell you they have a pride in themselves, their clan and community that goes beyond the clothes they wear.
Pride in the LGBT sense - while many of us think it's taken to extremes today, but as ultra capitalism has a hold of it they flog it as far as they can - means or originally meant being able to be as happy to be publicly gay and in a relationship as it is to be straight in a relationship. I supported gay marriage myself as it promoted commitment for the gay commmunity akin to what straight people (should) have.
There is a pride that Fatima and Co have, and that is the pride of sin, which is one of the seven deadly sins if I have my ice creams off to a T. To look down on another as being worth less or they should dress like you, talk like you or be like you to be worthy of respect is the worst form of pride of all.
Pride is one of the worst of the sins, as it enables other sins. Could anything from imperialism to slavery to the Holocaust happen without the sin of pride? Is white supremacy not the sin of pride?
We need less of the negative pride, and don't wound another whose pride is not the same as yours. Dress as you please, its the literal freedom of speech and expression that those of Fatima’s thinking claim to champion, and don't look down on others who don't dress as you do, as they have a pride in their tribal marking, be it a cultural or social tribal pride.
So, who Is Fatima, who are her people and what is her culture?
Fatima, as her first name suggests, is of Islamic extraction, being Irish on her mother's side whose surname she carries.
Her father is from Pakistan, and nothing the worse for that, so wearing pyjamas on the street is quite literally of her paternal culture.
She is either ignorant of that, or in denial of it as an Anglo Indian (as those of these islands who intermarried with Indians or Pakistani’s are sometimes known there) identifies with the white side of her family only. If that is true, it would be a sad sad thing to see.
I think it says more about her identity issues than it does about the folk in the shop.
I hope she learns to live and let live.
🌃Tom Carty is a writer and a lifelong leftwing republican, trade union and political activist.
It is one of the major - according to herself - issues of our time that came to her attention … of folk, plebs, wearing nightwear to when they go shopping!
A couple of folk, minding their own business, were photographed without their knowledge, and their image shared online mocking their dress. Apart from GDPR, there is harassment and incitement to hatred concerns with that. And that is under existing laws, not the new proposed hate speech laws.
An exchange of comments flowed over and back where Fatima doubled down on her comments, and others joined her with the message of “degeneracy” applied to innocent people out doing a bit of shopping just because they are not in Dolce & Gabbana or a collar and tie.
The fact that it was not folk in jammies but folk in suits that bankrupted the state is lost on this saviour of our culture, nor were the folks who evicted her family for wearing pyjamas.
The basic idea revolves that if someone is in pyjamas that they are antisocial, and that apparently they wouldn't be if they wore a collar and tie. It's a modern extension of the hoodie issue from the 1990’s, where the Sunday World brilliantly trolled Michael Noonan with the headline “Blueshirts Out - Blue Hoodies In.”
Fatima, if she read the works of Nuala O'Faolain would know that not all girls in dresses and lace are good girls, such a dawsie from North Longford I tell of below:
I know of a girl from up my lane - who I had never heard of as a kid who was told all things about Longford - who was well known for her love of dresses, and looking well. This passion, which Fatima would be fascinated with, started with spending the money stolen from her parents in Liverpool with the finery of the day, as she made her way to America.
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| Chicago May Homeplace |
If that was all she did, it would be bad enough, but when Longford do bad girls, they do the baddest in the world, and this lady went on the be a badger, a pickpocket and a pioneer in the blackmailing of men who gave in to their urges whether married or not. She could box like a fella, was responsible for at least one man taking his own life… and to cap it off was a lookout during the American Express robbery in Paris, which was not surpassed until the Great Train Robbery.
Thats about as degenerate as you get.
But thats all OK as she never wore nightwear to a shop.
So, in delving into pyjamas, to back up my belief that like bungalows and curry they are an import from India that came to the West under the Raj… I found out not alone was that true, but indeed in its native area from Persia / Iran to India is is indeed a normal streetwear.
Others in replying tweets went a lot farther, faulting leggings and yoga pants and sportswear among other things. Its a bit late of a whinge now, that conversation should have been in the 1970’s!!!
I never wear nightwear out myself, but I have no issue with those who do. Being a bloke I don't wear leggings (honest! - I don't have the legs for them!!!). And the striking thing was that with most of what was faulted it was predominantly but not exclusively women's attire held to ridicule by the replying tweeting mob.
We talk about Iran and the Burqua, well our own fashion police,if they are let have their say, will not alone have our women wearing heads carfs again en masse but also petticoats and good sensible non-sexual wooden clogs.
One of the main areas I pulled her up on was how English - with all due respects to the actual English - Fatima and Co seem to want us to be. She lauded the poor who tried to dress up as the rich to appear better than they were, and even back then they were the subject of snide remarks for being trying to be better than others they looked down on.
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| Traditional Irish Clothing |
If she saw how the actual Irish Gaelic dress was, she would have a stroke. Yes, its 15th century so not very macho, but still. She would be clutching her faux-pearls!
Pride And Prejudice
In invoking if Ireland is all about pride, why do we not have pride in how we look? Well, you say what Fatima thinks to anyone in a trakkie or jammies in a supermarket and the fat lip you get will tell you they have a pride in themselves, their clan and community that goes beyond the clothes they wear.
Pride in the LGBT sense - while many of us think it's taken to extremes today, but as ultra capitalism has a hold of it they flog it as far as they can - means or originally meant being able to be as happy to be publicly gay and in a relationship as it is to be straight in a relationship. I supported gay marriage myself as it promoted commitment for the gay commmunity akin to what straight people (should) have.
There is a pride that Fatima and Co have, and that is the pride of sin, which is one of the seven deadly sins if I have my ice creams off to a T. To look down on another as being worth less or they should dress like you, talk like you or be like you to be worthy of respect is the worst form of pride of all.
Pride is one of the worst of the sins, as it enables other sins. Could anything from imperialism to slavery to the Holocaust happen without the sin of pride? Is white supremacy not the sin of pride?
We need less of the negative pride, and don't wound another whose pride is not the same as yours. Dress as you please, its the literal freedom of speech and expression that those of Fatima’s thinking claim to champion, and don't look down on others who don't dress as you do, as they have a pride in their tribal marking, be it a cultural or social tribal pride.
So, who Is Fatima, who are her people and what is her culture?
Fatima, as her first name suggests, is of Islamic extraction, being Irish on her mother's side whose surname she carries.
Her father is from Pakistan, and nothing the worse for that, so wearing pyjamas on the street is quite literally of her paternal culture.
She is either ignorant of that, or in denial of it as an Anglo Indian (as those of these islands who intermarried with Indians or Pakistani’s are sometimes known there) identifies with the white side of her family only. If that is true, it would be a sad sad thing to see.
I think it says more about her identity issues than it does about the folk in the shop.
I hope she learns to live and let live.
🌃Tom Carty is a writer and a lifelong leftwing republican, trade union and political activist.
I remember a similar moral panic in Britain over people shopping in Tesco in their PJs. Some people need to get out more or should that be stay in more. But seriously, dress codes have always been cultural weapons to use against out groups or to uphold repressive mores e.g. wearing of the hijab.
ReplyDeleteDress codes are means of policing and enforcing respectability
ReplyDelete