"I've written about my pre-Ivy days in my 'Fogey' threads dotted around the web. Doing a search on FNB will pull up the subject. The aesthetic was a very mean one, very drab & lifeless. I hated it all. But then I'm an ungrateful little sod!

'76 was my turning point - I was so badly beaten at school for not trying hard enough at Rugger that I was in hospital. When I came round I wouldn't talk for ages & then when I did try to talk I had a stutter which I'd never had before (Hence 'The Rolling Stutter' threads on Modcult.). This just made me more tense & wound up. But because I couldn't communicate the analytical & mathematical side of my brain really took over so oddly the experience helped me a lot in the long run. I very rarely stammer today, btw.
From '76 to '78 I spent a lot of time running away. I focused on Soho & Chinatown because the place scared the crap out of me & I loved that feeling after having been wrapped up in cotton wool for so long. I've recently written a bit about that stage of mine on 'Talk Ivy'.
'78 I got sent to Yorkshire to straighten me out (another mini essay on that on the 'Ivy Style' site) but I discovered Jazz & clothes instead and at last I had a plan & a purpose.
After all that you know the story because it's in the JS 'A visit to...' essay.

My first ever heroes were the Cambridge Spies, with Ivy style I saw a way to do what they had done. To look one way but to be another, and only those who could read the code would know what I was really like. I could pass for a good son of the establishment & take advantage of the whole set up but still hate it in my heart & be myself, putting up two fingers to the whole lousy world of unfair privilege, whilst fully milking the system. The last laugh is the only one which counts.

I loved the attitude of punk, but never the obviousness of it. What I wanted was a way to really subtly fuck with the world and to get away with it. The joke always being that the 9 to 5 world hasn't got a clue about anything. I could be in my office at 9am after being up till 3 the night before in some club & nobody would ever connect me with that kind of life.

I'm aware that I've just written another one of my rambling mini-essays. A very bad habit of mine.

So in a nutshell a part of why I like Ivy is because it is English clothes transfigured and made into something 'other'. If I wear a blazer & flannels they're not what you might think they are if you don't know Ivy. My blazer isn't just some sad bastard's MCC wannabe blazer, it's something else from another world: It's NYC & MJQ. And you have to be hip to know that.

If you're not hip then I just look square, which suits me as I can then take advantage of your preconceptions. But If you are hip then you'll enjoy what a walking piss-take I am.

I like Ivy for many other reasons, mainly aesthetic, but the subversive side of it all really appeals to me a lot.

Bill Evans has to be one of the greatest to ever play this game - So square looking but really so hip. A junkie genius who looked like a Bank clerk.

Because what does a rebel really look like? And if you can spot a rebel then how effective can he be?

Etc.

Enough!

Fershtay?

Best -

Jim the Momzer!"