This week's contributors: Lydia, Dore Fasolati, this week's subjects: Men's shirts, Silk Aftertaste, Weekend Markets, Chemicals and Plastic and our DNA, Hubby and my Flow, Hot Dogs, Sarakawa Hotel

Men’s shirts.!

The current men’s shirt has a long history of generational transformation before getting to its present boring form in the 19th century.

Between the 16th and 18th century, men’s shirts often had a lace at the neck and cuffs, embroidery, and long neck frills or jabots were fashionable, until coloured shirts appeared in the early 19th century.

Shirts first appeared in European dress style in the 17th century as a type of underwear designed to protect expensive waistcoats and frock coats from sweat and soil.

Shirts then gained importance as garments in their own right. The emphasis placed on wearing clean perfectly styled linen brought the shirt into extensive prominence as an essential male garment.

Shirts were worn by pulling them over the head but in 1871 Brown, Davis & Co of Aldermanbury, London registered the first “coat style” shirt which later evolved to the buttoned down shirt.

Over the years, shirts have expanded to include quite a number of men and women garments like dress shirts, sports shirts, sweatshirts, T-shirts, shirtwaists, Tux shirts, and then of course the plain white shirt cut from the softest sea-island cotton has become every man’s sartorial must.

In Africa we have our own, and less boring styles, like smock, batakari, kaftan, buubuu etc

Silk processing had a bitter aftertaste!

As mentioned previously, silk originated in the Far East, but the Romans already used it, and around 1430 Europeans made their own silk, be it in small quantities. The copying of sophisticated Chinese reel weaving machines around 1435 accelerated the European silk industry and these novel techniques eventually led to the explosion of the British cotton industry and the need to get labourers for their cotton plantations in America...........

Weekend Markets!

It appears everybody these days is in selling, trying to make some extra money, and more and more  first Saturday or 2nd Sunday or whatever markets are springing up. Many of the items offered are home made, be they pomades, tye and dyes, bags and others, and it is not easy to find outstanding things of quality, but I did find Ghanaian wines, fresh fruit sorbets, crocodile leather bags, unusual hats and some exceptional designer quality tie and dyes, so at least once a month I visit some of these markets to see what's new.

Chemicals and Plastic and our DNA!

The way chemicals and plastics seem to be poisoning us we may soon have to fall back on sperm and egg banks of people with chemically unadulterated and undamaged genes, if they still can be found, maybe Amazon Indians, Eskimos or Papua New Guineans? So imagine what your great grandchildren which will be made in the lab will look like.

Hubby and my Flow!

He does not want to sleep in the same bed with me when I have my flow. Ridiculous, and you'd better have a serious chat with him.  Menstruation means your body decides that the egg is becoming stale and makes way for a new one. In his case his unused seed is re absorbed into his blood, but our egg is about 25 times bigger than his seed so that does not work for us. So we use about 2 soup spoons of blood to wash the old egg out. Not to stain our clothing or bedsheets we use menstruation pads, cotton wool or tampons. Apart from the possible staining there is absolutely nothing dirty about all this, and of course you need to change the pads or whatever regularly. And often we feel uncomfortable during those 5-6 days, so a bit of kindness, caressing and cuddling from Hubby is helpful, and rejection is totally unacceptable. Take it or leave it, I would say. Maybe a tough subject, but you'll have flows till roughly 50-55, so he'd better get used to this, or get out. You don't want to feel inferior or dirty every 28 days or so.

Hot Dogs!

We created a new recipe, here go:

A hot dog consisting of an oven heated hot bun, a good sausage (Shoprite is selling a surprisingly high quality Ghana made Frankfurter, I recommend), very lightly fried and finely chopped onions, tomato ketchup, and fresh quality foie grass (not the canned type) and fig jam, low sugar (given to me by a French woman who has figs in her garden, merci, Nadine). Don't let it cool down, or worse, get cold, it is called a hot dog.

Sarakawa Hotel!

We were told the Sarakawa Hotel in Lome  had been fully renovated, so we were hopeful.

The mattress was fine. The TV had a fully Chinese remote, after some time I gave up. The room AC could not be regulated and we were really cold all night but the room fridge did not work at all. We had 1 towel for 2. Their Wifi has a 2-3 level security on it so you have to re enter all their lengthy passwords every time you get out and into the coverage area, maybe because this country uses Pegasus spyware (look it up), and in the breakfast area it did not work at all, so no browsing while sipping a nice cup of coffee or tea. And there was no fresh orange juice, and their boiled eggs (œuf au coque) were definitely past the recommended 8 days. And at 0940 we were advised to hurry up  because they were to close at 10, and they did make sure we understood this.

Sorry ooooh.

Lydia...

do not forget to hit subscribe button and confirm in your email inbox to get notified about our post.

I have received requests about leaving comments/replies. For security and privacy reasons my blog is not associated with the major media giants like Facebook or Twitter. I am talking with the host about a solution, for the time being you can mail me on wunimi@proton.me

I accept invitations and payments to write about certain products or events, things, people, but I may refuse to accept and if my comments are negative then that's what I will publish, despite your payment. This is not a political newsletter. I do not discriminate on any basis whatsoever.