Socks*

As I've grown up, my ideas about what it means to be 'rich' have evolved substantially. I don't mean that I've migrated from a materialist definition - big house, smart car etc - to a more spiritual 'Love of the common people'-type definition. Financial assets and possessions remain important, if not central, and only a knave, a fool or a through-going combination of the two -John Lennon, perhaps - would tell you otherwise. Indeed, the 'materially rich/spiritually poor' archetype is not only demonstrably false in plenty of cases, it's a lazy and dishonest construct - a bit like the 'tragic clown' cliche that probably applies to, say, ten per cent of professional comedians.

And the flip of the cliche, perpetuated by, among others, Paul Young, is exceptionally dangerous: it is manifestly obvious that millions of poor people don't have a daddy to buy them a dream to cling to; and, while their momma might love them as much as she can, that might well not be as much as she ought, or as much as they need. The idea that family love somehow compensates for the hole in your shoe that lets the snow come through will only hamper that family's exodus from state-peddled welfare dependency, particularly in those many circumstances where the state accrues to itself the role of father and provider. And let us not pretend that the presence of both daddy and momma gives a child a statistically greater chance of achieving 'positive outcomes.' Etc etc.


Paul Young: a musical cosh for the sans-culottes

Anyway, unless you live in Sesame Street or the Night Garden, material considerations are part in any serious attempt to define wealth, and I've always felt that the idea of 'spiritual' riches is a soporific for the materially poor, who might be prevented from rising up against the existing social order - or at least from competing for finite material resources - if they can be persuaded that they are 'rich' in some other, preferably non-financial, way.


'He might be a millionaire with a massive house, a string of sports cars, a sleek and toned wife half his age, five beautifully-mannered children and a voluptuous blonde Ukrainian nurse - but is he happy?'

Thanks to the liberal and indiscriminate hosing down of the British public with oodles of money from the public purse, Asian creditors or from the sovereign backing implicit in the fractional reserve banking ponzi, most Britons are 'rich'. 'Millionaire' is a currency almost as debased as the pound sterling - if you're a child of the fifties or sixties and made no serious errors of financial judgement, you almost cannot help but have assets worth in excess of GBP1m. Even having GBP1m cash in the bank is no longer really 'rich,' as the interest on that sum would no longer permit a life of comfort: some other kind of job would be necessary, if not for spiritual dignity then at least for some pocket money.

A definition bandied about which preserves a degree of exclusivity is that you're not really rich unless you can afford to maintain two households - one in central London and one in the country - with the requisite number of staff, including cook, housekeeper and gardener at the very minimum. This is to me quite satisfying because it draws the line high enough to exclude those people among the extended Bumwad social circle whose apparent material wealth - big house in Holland Park or rural Suffolk, privately-educated children, fast cars - I covet.

"Well, Mr Bumwad," I hear you say, "that's all very interesting, especially the bit about voluptuous Ukrainian blonde nurses. But what the deuce does it have to do with socks?"

Well, you impudent young scamp, I was coming to that.

While I currently accept the 'two households' version, the definition of wealth that made the most impression on me as a boy I came across in a Look in story promoting the release of Superman III. Robert Vaughn's character, arch-villain Ross Webster, the megalomaniac CEO of Webscoe Industries, was described as being so rich he never wears a pair of socks twice.


Not a Sock Shop guy: Ross Webster, CEO of Webscoe Industries

Now I doubt a man like Ross Webster would buy his socks in five-packs from Sock Shop; in fact, Brooks Brothers and J Press would probably be a bit too low-rent for him. So, assuming he wore a pair of good quality merino wool socks during the day and - this was 1983, after all - a pair of silk evening socks when he changed for dinner, he would be spending in today's money over £20,000 per year.

On socks.

While that might represent a level of consumption distasteful to to many, it's hardly conspicuous, which counts stromgly in his favour. This guy might be a power-hungry maniac like Hugo Drax or Peter Mandelson, but at least he's not an ocean-going vulgarian. Too bad about the whole killing-Superman, destroying-the-Columbian-coffee-industry shenanigans, of course, but I think we could recognise in his appetites a fundamentally decent man who just happens to have gone off the rails for a time. Nothing all that much worse than running away from a play and hiding in Bruges for a few weeks, or driving barefoot to Dundee (that's one for you, Mr Cuthbertson).


Look in: subtle social commentary and dubbed Supamariorama science fiction

So socks have long had a central place in the Bumwad idea of material plenty and therefore comfort.

I used to think socks were a useful vehicle to put a bit of colour into one's appearance and to assert a subversive attitude. Cripes, the folly of youth: it is a mark of shame that even by my mid-twenties I had not left the 'red socks with school uniform' stage. I now empurple involuntarily when I read those hideous exhortations in 'style' sections that a gentleman 'demonstrate his creative personality,' or, even more depressingly, show a sense of humour by wearing silly-coloured or nastily-patterned 'fun' socks. That once was me, that former self from whom I now recoil as though scalded.

Now, in defence of my younger self, I have pretty much always been an enthusiast for birds-eye socks, sold by Budd and a few other places, which I wear with my tweed suits. I also have several pairs of the black/grey and blue/navy birds-eyes, which work well with business suits. The cloth is warm yet quite light - though probably too warm for the high summer. However, most importantly, particularly for considerations of public decency, the three-quarter length versions are sufficiently long to protect against an inadvertently glimpse of naked Bumwad shin, a sight which has been known to lead many young ladies to quite forget themselves in their excitement.


Why, Mr Bumwad..!

The practice of 'expressing yourself' through your socks is unsatisfactory on many levels. First and most glaringly, it's just wrong. If you have a sense of humour, let it be evident not in your choice of undergarment but in your conversation, your letters, your blogposts. If you are creative, let it shine in your conduct, in your napkin doodles and your designs for various landmark buildings in the City of London - but most certainly not in your choice of pants. Just as you illustrate your skills as a pilot by flying an aeroplane, not by press-ganging a watch to do the job for you, you prove your boldness by standing up for the disadvantaged, confronting the bullies, falling asleep at your desk after a few swift halves of nut-brown ale at lunchtime, not by wearing bright red socks.

I grow tired of repeating this - if only to myself and sotto voce: the only character trait you should 'illustrate' through your clothes is judgement. And even then that is demonstrated not by any single item but through the presentation of a coherent whole.

Secondly, it's more marketing wankspeak. No single material item or possession can, will or should signify your character, and the sooner you realise that, the less vulnerable you will be to advertising and, consequently, the happier you'll be, even if it means foregoing that limited edition titanium Leica M9.

And if you feel you need to 'express' any of these things through your clothes, go and have a bath or a lie-down, possibly accompanied by A GOOD HARD THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU'VE JUST DONE, until the feeling passes.


And owning this will not make you a good photographer, but it will make you £20,000 poorer

(Interestingly, you will very rarely see women's socks being sold as 'fun' or 'bold' or 'wacky'. My hypothesis is that this is because (a) women - at least, much more so than men - instinctively understand that clothes are there to make you look sexy, not funny; and (2) the sort of women who do fall for that sort of intelligence-demeaning guff are probably the sort of women who have to buy their husband's clothes for them; and, if their husband is too busy or too bloody apathetic to exercise any judgement over his choice of underwear, there is a good chance that he is in fact a little bit dull. The typical middle class Englishwoman would rather her husband were a fugitive Bosnian Serb rape camp guard than be thought boring or serious. So, with the misplaced optimism that is probably the most endearing female trait - along with child-rearing, multi-tasking and hold-up stockings - she tries to act to remedy the situation, and buys her workaday husband the sort of socks she thinks Stephen Fry or Jimmy Carr would wear.)

While 'fun socks' might not be quite up there with the revolving bow tie or the white tuxedo in a temperate climate, they are firmly on the wrong side of the fine line between mature individualism and boil-in-the-bag eccentricity. Such items should be avoided, along with any other item of dress which a lazy hack might be justified in describing as a 'trademark' - as in "he wore his trademark red spotted braces..." or "Resplendent in his trademark 'smiley face' silk waistcoat..." That is why we look for sartorial inspiration to Evelyn Waugh, the Duke of Edinburgh and Cary Grant rather than to Larry King, Timmy Mallett or Sir Christopher Meyer. If you possess any such items, either discard them or save them for fancy dress. You will feel much less of a twat when you do.


Not a good look for Her Majesty's ambassador to the United States of America

Fortunately, my views have matured somewhat since my early adulthood. Once I had begun to appreciate the stupidity of this course of action, I started wearing much plainer designs. However the 'trickle down' effect of certain supposedly high end retailers had worked its pernicious effects, and the 'wacky' cotton sock, once the preserve of slightly upmarket uxorio-retail [neologism alert] mail-order firms and golfing outfitters, became increasingly the default.

In flight at the plague of 'amusing' hosiery, I started buying my socks from Budd, a shop I knew only because I had lingered once or twice in the window trying to work out how they survived: no website, no seasonal sale to speak of, no faux glamorous low-resolution foxes from central European. In fact, it's a charming little outfit, and a haven for sober sock enthusiasts. The socks I bought were single-coloured cotton lisle, some with a 'contrast' heel and toe arrangement, others plain. I started with maroons, dark greens and greys, but began to wear only navy and black.

Then, when I met my future wife, she explained that short socks were considered barbaric in much of Italy, and that prejudice struck a chord with me. The modern English aversion from knee-length socks seems to be based solely on the belief that they look ridiculous when worn without trousers (or shoes). While this is true, this is wholly irrational and irrelevant judgement unless you intend to venture into public without trousers. With suitable legwear in place, ridiculousness is avoided, sanity preserved, maturity gained. Thus the prohibition seems to rely for its force upon feelings of inadequacy that were probably implanted during short-trousered schooldays, reinforced during adolescent nightmares of public humiliation, and exacerbated by what for many was surely the dominant sensation of those years and every other since: the fear of not fitting in and the need to conform.

So, from around the point I met Mrs B I began wearing long socks; and, as well as greatly enhancing my sense of proportion and coherence, that course of action reduces substantially the risk of buying ghastly socks. Long socks are a bit grown up, a bit fuddy-duddy, a bit Paul Eddington, for the neophiliacs and youth-worshippers of modern Britain. Short socks are 'young' and therefore 'fun' and . So just as it is hard to find well-made and sober short socks, it is hard to find garish long socks (outside a golf shop, of course).

Turnbull & Asser do some very practical knee-length woollen sports socks that stay up for the whole day, pretty much regardless of the activity, and, at this time of year, are much warmer than most alternatives. Sadly, it takes only a couple of wrong wash settings by an inattentive Fillippina daily for the nylon and wool content to conspire to render them unwearable to any biped taller than a Jawa. (O/T but as a child I used to think 'biped' was pronounced the same was as 'piped'. 'Man is a biped.' 'Biped what?' I used to speculate.) They also sell a much finer cotton sock for the summer, but again these have been disappointingly unresilient, and the point at which the toe-cap is linked to the main tube of the sock develops holes after only a few months' light wear.

Additionally, the birds-eyes mentioned above provided an imperfect solution also. The lightness of which I spoke verges on the flimsy, and I have several times put holes in them on the occasions when foolishly I wander the floorboards unshod. Also the relatively high nylon content not only does not improve resilience, it leads them to shrink if the afore-mentioned Fillippina includes them in the 40C load.

So, faced with these disappointments, the quest for the perfect sock has been, while not at the forefront of my mind certainly not languishing on the back seat of the Bumwad brain-bus surreptitiously drinking vodka and looking at a dog-eared copy of Razzle.

I was moved to post this by my recent discovery, quite by accident, of what I think are the perfect general-purpose sock. It all began in spring 2008 on a short trip to India via Dubai, where I stayed with my brother and his wife. Realising I had not brought sufficient sock stocks to last the eight days, I had to acquire some en route. Dubai is not only a literal and cultural desert but a sartorial one to boot: there was in those days literally nowhere in the whole Emirate where you could buy clothes that you could conceivably want to wear. I have no reason to suppose this has changed.

After some increasingly forlorn traipsing through one of the interchangeable malls, I headed with little hope into Harvey Nichols, and ended up reluctantly buying two pairs of Falke Shadows, in a pale grey. They aren't particularly remarkable - they're just grey socks, after al. But, without realising it, they have become an established part of my summer wardrobe, being very hard-wearing as well as light and pleasant to wear.

Then, over this summer, as I was disposing of what seemed like then twentieth of my Turnbull & Asser summer socks, I was casting about for a source of a suitable replacement when I realised that the solution was staring me in the eye. Or the big toe. And not actually staring either. The solution was on my foot. Surely Falke did a slightly heavier version of the Shadow that would do for both high summer and the temperate London winter? I used the internet to track down a London supplier, and, minutes later, made my way for the first time in many years across the threshold of Harrods, and into their sock section.

And there I found the Falke No 13 (West Indian Sea Island cotton) sock. In both black and navy blue. For a mere £26. Cool in the Indian summer of September, warm as winter draws on. You can buy them online here - also in 'sand' for tweedy days. So far they have survived nearly four months on heavy rotation - a pair for every day of the week and a spare for weekends - leavened only occasionally by the wearing of the Turnbull sports socks during the recent extreme chilly spell. The quest was at an end.

And, unlike Return of the king, I'm going to leave it there - much as I know some of my readers would like a few soot- and tear-soaked with vaguely homosexual undertones reunion scenes to drag it out to an epic length.

* A boring title for what sounds like a boring post. I was going to call it 'Indiana Bumwad and the Search for the Sh1t-Hot Sok (2010) - IMDb' but that sounded impenetrably obscure as well as crap and I cannot italicise in the title field.