Places that have inspired pants

Some historic pants.

The following places have all given their names to types of gentleman's strides. In some cases, the clothing may have inspired the place. Geographers, lexicogaphers and pantologists all make competing claims. It is not for me to adjudicate.

• Dongari Killa 1, India - dungarees
• Nîmes, France - denims
• Genoa 2, Italy - jeans
• Trousers Point, King Island, Tasmania - the ordinary Western trouser
• Bermuda - the eponymous shorts
• Jodhpur, India - the eponymous pony club pants
• Capri, Italy - capri pants 3
• Tracksuit, Nova Scotia - Australia and New Zealands's most popular pants 4

1. Also a member of the Wu Tang Clan
2. Known in French as Gênes
3. "Capris acceptance in the United States was influenced by the 1960s television series The Dick Van Dyke Show. The character of Laura Petrie, the young housewife played by Mary Tyler Moore, caused a fashion sensation – and some mild controversy – by wearing snug-fitting capri pants during the show's run. After a drop in popularity during the 1970s through the 1990s capris returned to favor during the 2000s. Spanish tennis player Rafael Nadal wore capris in the majority of his matches before 2009." - Wikipedia
4. Morgan and Gallop poll, "What do you think of pants?" Aug 2007

Fast thick pants

I'm not terribly given to reading poetry, although I suspect as I get older I might take it up. I have heard of Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge but never got around to reading it until last night. I was very impressed with these lines:

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:

Pants!

Kelly's Trousers

Kelly's Steps are a reasonably famous olde time feature of Hobart, connecting the rabbit-warren streets of Battery Point to Salamanca Place. They are named after whaler, harbourmaster and explorer Captain James Kelly. I just learned that his brother-in-law was eaten by Maoris, after which he killed a number in reprisal.

He came to mind because I was reading an old newspaper article from 1987 written by Christopher Koch, who wrote The Year of Living Dangerously, Highways to a War and Out of Ireland among other things. He grew up here. He says of Battery Point;

It used to be 'bad', in my Depression infancy: a district of grim old poverty, it's cottages built for dwarfs. Now its an expansive historical filmset, full of tasteful paint and coach lamps: a real-estate man's dream. Here are the stone steps built especially for that Homeric whaling master, Captain James Kelly, whose trousers, in response to a bet, were proved to hold five bushels of wheat. Kelly's Steps take me down from the ridge on Salamanca Place as they once took him: and here is Hobart of the 1840s.

I have just added the bit about his capacious pants to his Wikipedia entry. Heavens, sometimes the 21st Century is just so much fun.

Hair Pants

Michael was invited to his first party a couple of weeks ago, but we couldn't take him, as the date and time clashed with the Planet Party at home. When Elf dropped Michael at school this morning, she met for the first time the mum who invited Michael. She and her husband seem lovely, but are very sharply presented every morning. We do our best of course, but we are not in their league. Elf was chatting to her when she realised that she still a pair of briefs on her head, holding her hair back. This is apparently to help her fringe dry, and I am smugly reporting it as I predicted a while back that she would get caught out one day.