[knickers] which style do you prefer

Need your advice, ladies:

Faire un sondage autour de soi et demander aux hommes s'ils portent des dessous imprimés, c'est comme leur poser la question : "Vous arrive-t-il de mettre une jupe ?" Les yeux s'écarquillent, le rire éclate et la sentence tombe : "Non moi, c'est noir, blanc ou gris." Sur la forme, les réponses sont plus nuancées : "Boxer, caleçon, slip..." Certains sont fidèles à un modèle, la plupart changent en fonction des envies ou des vêtements.

Après quatre ans de fantaisies (boxer dentelle, string) qui ont encouragé la clientèle masculine à oser un peu plus que d'ordinaire, les choses sont rentrées dans l'ordre. "En 2001 s'est installé un courant de dessous masculins plus proches de l'esprit lingerie, souligne-t-on chez la marque de sous-vêtements Hom. Sophistiqués, sensuels et presque féminins, ces produits en Lycra hyper-fin, finition compliquée, impressions ton sur ton se sont très bien vendus, puisqu'ils ont réalisé, chez nous, une progression de 25 % à 30 %. Aujourd'hui, le marché stagne."

Effet de curiosité ? Impact publicitaire ? Quelle qu'en soit la raison, beaucoup d'hommes - principalement les 40 ans et plus - ont cédé à la tentation. En 2005 pourtant, après s'être offert un détour vers l'originalité, ils semblent être retournés au classique des formes, des couleurs et des matières. Rien d'étonnant à cela. De l'avis des fabricants, l'homme, dans le domaine vestimentaire, est un fidèle. Pour les dessous, il déroge encore moins à la règle. "Quand un modèle lui plaît, il a beaucoup de mal à en changer", remarque Marc Lefèvre, PDG de la marque Eminence.

C'est pourquoi le slip est encore fort apprécié, malgré une très forte percée, cette dernière décennie, du shorty. "En grande distribution, c'est encore le slip qui se vend le plus", précise Estelle Cortier, responsable marketing chez Hechter Studio. Ailleurs, c'est le shorty qui sort grand vainqueur toutes catégories ; chez Hom, il représente 52 % des ventes, contre 33 % pour le slip et 8 % pour le string.

Boxer shorts are the go

La forme shorty fait l'unanimité chez les jeunes; chez les plus âgés, elle plaît plutôt aux citadins. Les coloris les plus appréciés sont les traditionnels blanc, bleu marine, noir ou gris. Les fantaisies couture doivent être discrètes et surtout ne pas nuire au bien-être. "Pour l'homme, la mode n'est pas un facteur déterminant, constate Marc Lefèvre. Au contraire, l'effet de style est plutôt rébarbatif. Son premier critère de choix, c'est le confort de la ceinture, des coutures, de la découpe."

Cette exigence détermine le choix des matières. "Eléments majeurs de la fabrication, celles-ci doivent être de plus en plus souples et élastiques jusqu'à se faire oublier", poursuit le PDG d'Eminence, qui a jeté son dévolu sur le jersey mélangé à un peu de Lycra. Hechter Studio préfère le coton, micromodal ou viscose (95 %) mêlés d'élasthane (5 %), pour sa collection printemps 2006 avec slips et shortys à fantaisie discrète, comme ces petits liserés blancs qui soulignent la coupe.

Tandis que, chez Hom, on ose le vert tilleul, le jaune, la rayure orange sur fond turquoise, en microfibres ou tissus naturels, débardeur et tee-shirt assortis.

Ces innovations inciteront peut-être les hommes à acheter plus de cinq slips par an (soit un budget de 30 à 45 euros), ce qui est la moyenne aujourd'hui. Et à ne plus laisser leurs épouses choisir leurs dessous, comme c'est encore le cas à pour la moitié d'entre eux.

le monde 20.02.06

These last seem to be the answer, don't you think, girls?

[blog reader] seems the way to go

Might get to like my new Blog Reader.

With Blogpower and the Purple Roll on it so far, it's pretty neat - twelve new posts - suddenly I'm there and commenting.

Doesn't alter the loading time but cuts down the overall time.

[surf's up] if you like 13 degrees celsius

Surfing in Iceland, from the boys who know:

"There are not that many surfers in Iceland and for many reasons we want to keep it that way."

“The seals surf the waves with us, they show us how it’s done. Sometimes, they come up to the board and we give them a pat – we’ve even given one of them a name.”

"The half kilometre of jagged rocks and coral before you reach the surf are no problem."

"Not only do you have to wear booties, but because of the unpredictability of the weather up here, you also have to plan ahead and constantly check the forecast."

“The big difference in other places is that you try to avoid big crowds. Here you call each other up when you’re going out.”

Anyone for the surf? Flight to Reykjavik, stand in the main street looking for madmen and follow them to a fishing village. Easy!

[inspirational] five from many

Roll up, ladies and gentlemen and collect, please.

JMB

Welshcakes Limoncello

Lady Macleod

Two Wolves

Fabian Tassano

Inspirational all. Question - why is it that the post one has put the most work into is usually read the least?

[hewlett packard] dangerous place for a woman

Carly Fiorina, wrong woman in the wrong place at the wrong time

In this article, the references cannot be cited because they're classified information.

They come directly from people inside,concerned with the action at the time or else from the Wall Street Journal, Businessweek, Dow Jones ProQuest or Palo Alto Online.

Sorry to have to muddy the waters.

The issue

From The Catbird Seat, by James Thurber:

The aging [Mr. Fitweiler, head of F&S] had jumped to the conclusion there and then that this was a woman of singular attainments, equipped to bring out the best in him and in the firm.

A week later he had introduced [Mrs. Ulgine Barrows] into F & S as his special adviser. On that day confusion got its foot in the door.

After Miss Tyson, Mr. Brundage, and Mr. Bartlett had been fired and Mr. Munson had taken his hat and stalked out, mailing in his resignation later, old Roberts had been emboldened to speak to Mr. Fitweiler.

She had begun chipping at the cornices of the firm’s edifice and now she was swinging at the foundation stones with a pickaxe.

Mr. Martin stood up in his living room, still holding his milk glass. “Gentlemen of the jury,” he said to himself, “I demand the death penalty for this horrible person.”

The story

When Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard drafted the "HP" Way in 1957, it was said:

The HP Way is a subtle way, and that is why we have so much trouble describing it. It is basically a faith in people to use their discretion and to be sure along the way to make some mistakes as well as to make some contributions. In a way that, over time, generally will continue to take the company in the direction it wants to go — consistent with its basic underlying set of objectives.

The result was a culture thick management system, quite revolutionary for its time [as McDonalds was] and almost a product of the safe 50s and 60s in its scope. The theory was that profits would naturally accrue if the product was good and you had the process right:

You can't mess with the process. There's not a lot of flexibility in the way you use the process. The process has a very good track record and people don't like you to mess with it.

The trouble was that things changed in the 70s and HP had to get into some redeployment and layoffs which didn't sit at all well with employees and shareholders. Venturing into the computer field, not their core area of expertise, their overall tech-savviness saw profits accrue until they settled on the printer business as the mainstay.

Clouds gather

By the 80s, they were doing well but not brilliantly and the shake-ups and changes in direction had taken their toll on the HP Way. Enter Lew Platt, a real HP Way man, with a deep love for the company. He did all he could to modernize "The Way" and smooth differences - he was a consensus man. It was not enough in the face of new competition.

Although he built the company's sales from $16 billion to $47 billion in seven years as CEO, critics still labeled him soft and too determined to preserve the company's legendary H-P Way, with its concern for employees' welfare. He didn't inspire, they said, and he missed the Internet revolution.

Business has no conscience but it should at least have some common sense.

By this time, the new breed of female high-flyer was really getting off the ground and there was much talk at the time of "females in trousers" and it seemed the only way for a woman to make it in a male dominated corporate world was to get the score on the board.

Patricia Dunn, who took over from Carly Fiorina

Enter Carly Fiorina, described as:

Unshakable. Self-reliant. Comfortable in the spotlight. Fond of the dramatic gesture. Impervious to criticism. Passionate about the big picture. The kind of person who bounds from project to project, embracing change as a way of life.

Trouble arrives …

[new feudalism] lookout, here comes china

You can kill the body ...

Ten thousand Chinese become Christians each day and 200 million Chinese may comprise the world's largest concentration of Christians by mid-century, according to a Catholic Church report.

If the projections are even halfway right, Christianity will have become a Sino-centric religion two generations from now. China may be for the 21st century what Europe was during the 8th-11th centuries, and America has been during the past 200 years: the natural ground for mass evangelization.

The West has pretty well gone - shopping and hedonism are the new g-ds, pushed by the eco-humanist cabals to get the people enslaved and credit squeezes, carbon trading and iris scans are the blood payment, thereby leaving the way open to Islam. Quick check - do you see it possible Jesus Christ could save you from yourself and give you some comfort along the way?

See what I mean?

So let's move along. The West will have disintegrated by 2011, 12, 2018 tops, the police state is supreme and people have become serfs in their own countries [Britain pretty well already]. The SPPNA, which met an unexpected stumbling block in 2009, has now come back in a different form and all essential functions are in the hands of the CFR over there and the cabals in Britain/Europe.

Now the question is the EU joining forces with Britain and the NAU and with the UN, WTO and NATO lending a hand.

The big enemy is China - but not for the supposed reason. As the report says:

China, devoured by hunger so many times in its history, now feels a spiritual hunger beneath the neon exterior of its suddenly great cities. Four hundred million Chinese on the prosperous coast have moved from poverty to affluence in a single generation, and 10 million to 15 million new migrants come from the countryside each year, the greatest movement of people in history.

Despite a government stance that hovers somewhere between discouragement and persecution, more than 100 million of them have embraced a faith that regards this life as mere preparation for the next world. Given the immense effort the Chinese have devoted to achieving a tolerable life in the present world, this may seem anomalous.

On the contrary: it is the great migration of peoples that prepares the ground for Christianity, just as it did during the barbarian invasions of Europe during the Middle Ages.

Last month's murder of reverend Bae Hyung-kyu, the leader of the missionaries still held hostage by Taliban kidnappers in Afghanistan, drew world attention to the work of South Korean Christians, who make up nearly 30% of that nation's population and send more evangelists to the world than any country except the United States.

This is only a first tremor of the earthquake to come, as Chinese Christians turn their attention outward. Years ago I speculated that if Mecca ever is razed, it will be by an African army marching north; now the greatest danger to Islam is the prospect of a Chinese army marching west.

Great stuff. I always knew that the Chinese army was going to come marching to Israel and Har Megiddon, [a little north of Jerusalem - this forms the substance of my fourth book], all indicators point to this but never dreamt it might be a Christian army. Not bad, eh?

The article continues:

People do not live in a spiritual vacuum; where a spiritual vacuum exists, as in western Europe and the former Soviet Empire, people simply die, or fail to breed. In the traditional world, people see themselves as part of nature, unchangeable and constant, and worship their surroundings, their ancestors and themselves.

When war or economics tear people away from their roots in traditional life, what once appeared constant now is shown to be ephemeral.

In contrast to Catholicism, which has a very long historic presence in China but whose growth has been slow, charismatic Protestantism has found its natural element in an atmosphere of official suppression. Barred from churches, Chinese began worshipping in homes, and five major "house church" movements and countless smaller ones now minister to as many as 100 million Christians.

… in other words, back to the early church fathers and being thrown to the lions again …

The most audacious even dream of carrying the gospel beyond the borders of China, along the old Silk Road into the Muslim world, in a campaign known as "Back to Jerusalem".

Isn't that neat? The Chinese upper echelons are hell bent on economic and cultural imperialism and are completing the Super-Highway to Kashmir, on the back of western money and through to Jerusalem but probably never dreamed it would be used by mass forces of Christianity.

But don't forget:

Where traditional society remains entrenched in China's most backward regions, Islam also is expanding. At the edge of the Gobi Desert and on China's western border with Central Asia, Islam claims perhaps 30 million adherents. If Christianity is the liquidator of traditional society, Islam is its defender against the encroachments of leveling imperial expansion.

So while the Sutherlandic, Chiracic, Broonite pagan lost souls make everyone in the West indebted losers, enslaving society and wasting their time mopping up the last of the Christian resistance for no strategic reason whatsoever, [a little like Agent Smith and the boys in Matrix III], the real battle - between Christianity and Islam - will take place around Kashmir and then move on down across the now dammed Tigris and Euphrates, past Babylon [30 km south of Baghdad] and into Israel itself.

While William & Mary wastes its time locking the Cross away in a cupboard and the godless, loony feministi try to hijack the agenda in universities and other hotbeds of battle, while the line between humanitarianism and humanism is blurred to confuse the children, people's faith pops up in the most unexpected places.

The phenomenon is recorded in many books and films. I'm going to thoroughly enjoy it until they come for me and put me on that table. Then it won't be so much fun.

Does all this sound a little fanatical to you? I've always fancied being a fanatic - only I was too cynical and I'm not much good as an evangelist. Maybe I'm too far gone.

Yo, St. George! The Dragon's going down, man.