T-shirts and a wallet combat Global Warming

Never really been a T-shirt man myself. It’s always been shirts and jackets with going casual implying discarding the tie.

Messing about in boats in British waters meant being prepared to combat hypothermia in June or staying dry in a downpour. T-shirt and shorts doesn’t really cut it for that sort of duty.

Chaps carrying handbags is a continental thing. I once asked a Glaswegian friend, living in Paris and having taken up the Gallic man-bag habit, how he’d get on it if he tried going out with the same appendage in his native city: “if I were lucky I’d be abused” was the response. So wearing shirts and jackets brings another advantage, the pockets offer somewhere to put your stuff. “Stuff” in my case used to include, cigarettes and lighter, money, mobile phone, house keys, car keys, business cards, credit cards, receipts for things, car park tickets, sweets, pills and old cinema tickets. At least.

Now I’d like to show you chaos theory in action. If you haven’t come across Chaos Theory before, it’s also known as the Bermuda Butterfly effect. The idea is that very small changes can lead to huge consequences if the circumstances are right, for example a butterfly flapping its wings in Bermuda could conceivably be the trigger for a later hurricane rampaging around the Caribbean.

A friend’s daughter opened a discount clothing and accessories shop. I went during the opening week and felt I had to buy something, mainly out of courtesy. Not having used a wallet for some time (well, I had my jackets, didn’t I) I bought one that I rather liked. Liking it, I put all my credit cards, business cards, cash money and driving licence into it. No longer addicted to cigarettes, what did I now need pockets for? Well, a mobile, keys and said wallet. Mobile and keys can go in a trouser pocket and I can carry the wallet, so jacket no longer required, nor the breast pocket in the shirt: wow - I can start wearing T-shirts.

Everyone is complaining about climate change and global warming making for a stifling summer, but me, in my new short-sleeved-singlety coolth am more comfortable than in previous years, and the jackets are all resting until autumn. The implication of that is that, pandering to vanity, I have to take more exercise to flatten my T-shirt covered waistline. So, here we go, buying a wallet is making me swim more; now, if that isn’t chaos theory in action, I don’t know what is.

There’s even more chaos now though, ’cos I can’t remember where I left the damned wallet!