Red Trousers

Red trousers, huh, what's that about?  Well if you look around during this mild but blowy winter you'll find people in red trousers everywhere.

Scarlet to cherry and burgundy, from some quick research it seems that men are wearing these colours because of a move in menswear towards confident experimentation.  At TTC we believe such confidence is probably down to research of the types carried out during Summer 2013.  Alas, it is more likely we are incorrect and that in this dreary winter of little colour, red trousers are the only way to be anyone worth noticing.

A little deeper into the planning phase and I was questioning things once more

But as Fashion Beans says

 "red exudes confidence and shows you are not afraid of having all eyes on you"

It is pretty hard to turn down such a free pass to the Cardiff Big Time.

If any doubt is had about the validity of such statements then this incredible blog removes it, Look at my fucking red trousers!; a rude title for sure, but such inspirational posts about the joys of red trousers, even Rio Ferdinand makes an appearance :-o 

Shopping for the trousers themselves turned out to be very easy for men with either of our leg sizes.  The only dilemma was the shade of red to go for, one of us opting for burgundy and the other for a powerful Welsh Red.  A slight hazard of winter shopping is the gloomy natural light; it is quite easy to believe some orange trousers are red, a mistake that will ensure you look foolish on the dance floor.  A cuddly jumper thing and a very odd blue blazer thing (which was completely void of any water repellency) and we were ready.

Onto business.  The usual plans were made and we arrived at Wetherspoons completely soaked, trousers going a darker level of trendiness and a worrying lack of awareness of sweat levels due to overall dampness.

Dried off, sweat patches hidden and experimental confidence in full flow

The first thing we noticed was that all eyes were not on us, potentially we had prepared ourselves for a situation that wasn't to present itself.  The Cardiff Big Time was already slipping away. Thankfully a rather dashing young chap waltzed by and reaffirmed the choices we had made.

A TTCer stood next to 100% Lad in Burgundy and Jacket

As this guy had dressed himself in a way that so closely resembled the timeless but wholly Winter 13/14 style sported by TTC, we had renewed faith in the sweet clothes we'd spent all our money on. The appeal was obvious in the gentle ambiance of The Gatekeeper, alluring yet subtle trousers topped off with a homely but sophisticated jacket.  Granted the man pulled it off more naturally than we did, but he was wearing appropriate footwear for such trousers, meaning he was able to prance around without a care in the world while we had to make do with annoyingly supportive and comfy trainers.  Enough of this, off to Live Lounge via Floyds.

Don't worry, the jacket came off not long after this

There is talk red trousers make you more flexible, this is not true, the man above is just very malleable

Doltish but anonymous is the only way to describe how we felt in Live Lounge.  Somehow red trousers sapped all the self respect we had but did nothing to stir up fashion envy or disgust in others.

This week I saw a sign in a men's toilet that tickled me.  It read "Warning - the water is mad hot".  I imagined that was a sentiment that could be applied to red trousers with ease, sadly this was not how it turned out.  The only positive out of it all is that I now have a pretty bad blue jacket that I can wear anytime with grey jeans.  

Red Trousers: Garish, more common than you may think yet uninspiring.

The Danger Fake Tattoos Pose to an Idiot

Warning graphic images of a melted shoulder below

A night held fondly in the memory is when we experimented with tattoo paper.  As we reported at the time, these glorious displays of body art were well received and brought a new level of respect to our already arresting upper arms.  There is, though, a dark truth that we have kept secret until now...

So, the tattoo paper advised complete hair removal from the area in question, this would have been easy if we were doing my head but unfortunately we were doing the shoulder region.  This is a tricky area because at first you think it is a smooth delightful area of the male body but on closer inspection it is revealed to not be the romantic scene one hoped for.

To ensure total smoothness it was suggested I might try Veet, excited by the prospect of this out I went to find said stuff.  Once I happened across an inviting looking tube of Aloe Vera Veet I bought it straight away and got home before heading out to the excellent local micro brewery open bar.  While there I was strongly advised to test the Veet on a hidden body part, such as the upper thigh, to ensure my skin could handle it.

I chuckled, walked home and read the bottle which warned me to test it before every use, to ensure no adverse reactions, and to leave 24 hours before applying more.  I applied a tiny patch to my lower neck and 10 minutes later applied the rest to my full shoulder and upper arm region.  Once the tiny hairs were scrubbed away I had a shower; this hurt a bit, but of course I had just had my shoulders scrubbed with the provided stick thing.  Out of the shower, over to apply some moisturiser to my still sore shoulders and my situation became evident as I let out a deathly gasp, I was in for a dark period of my life.

Such braveness, the lady behind doesn't realise she is near such strife

The pain was crippling, of a similar magnitude to giving birth I would hazard, and I spent the next 20 minutes grimacing and yelping while attempting to print off the stupid carp tattoos.  The night went well as we know, the main negatives were all the super excited people who wanted to get involved in the tattoo action and so kept slapping me on the shoulders, as though I were some cheap bongo provided for them to play with, Jager bombs only heightened the experience.  That night and the next few days the general feeling was the one where it seems like your shoulders are oozing goo from numerous raw wounds.

A week later and, well, this was the result (bear in mind it was summer and given my fair complexion there are a number of freckles, mostly though it is oozing damage):

The infamous "adverse reaction"

I must reiterate, this was all my fault for ignoring numerous levels of safety advice.

A brief conclusion; this was very painful and I will not be using hair removal creams on my shoulders again.  The good news is that my upper arms were completely unharmed.