Club Foyer>Chillout Room>Depositions

Rat pack in macs

Here’s another mackintosh experience, and this one is almost as bang up to date as it gets. This happened last month. It’s just been a case of me getting the time to type up the experience.

I went to a convention in Ireland. The Emerald Isle lived up to her reputation for greenness, in so far as it rained consistently from start to finish the whole time I was there, which can only have done the plant life a world of good.

The people running the convention had a great idea that I hadn’t seen before. They had hired a team of photographers to cover their function, and they kept popping up when you least expected them to, armed with their cameras. These weren’t just any old photographers. They were hired to pose as paparazzi, and to make us all feel like celebs no doubt.

This came with an added bonus in so far as they came in a sort of fancy dress, dressing as the paparazzi do apparently. I hadn’t realised it to be the case, but apparently your typical paparazzi photographer wears a mac, and, incidentally, a type of trilby hat.

The team of photographers were all dressed in what we were supposed to believe were identical macs and hats. I can’t comment on the hats being identical, but I can tell you that their macs were simply similar as opposed to all being the same. All of them were double breasted full length coats in cream/stone/putty colours. I don’t know how many photographers there were matching this description, but it was probably 10. Save for the fact that I liked their coats they could have become a genuinely annoying presence.

Out of the 10 or so photographers, one really caught my eye. That’ll be because she was the only female one. Oddly, her mac buttoned up down the right in a male sort of a way, whereas at least two of the men had female fastening ones!! Tut tut….. Attention to detail was lacking!!

This lady though………. Oooooh! I could go sausage fingered now at the very thought of her. Probably in her late 20’s with pretty deep brown eyes and scrunchy tight curly dark hair protruding from under that hat…… and a grin to die for…….

I found myself SO wanting her to do up my coat from within the walls of her mac. This should have been a pipe dream, but I’m pleased to tell you I found a way….

I suppose I struck lucky… I had a ground floor bedroom in the hotel where the convention was held that was very near a hotel exit. The hotel was a non-smoking venue, so imagine my delight then, when looking out of my hotel window between the convention’s daily end and dinner, I saw her come outside in her mac and hat and light a cigarette.

Next came what was potentially awkward. Had I had a coat with a zip with me, I’m very confident that I could’ve walked outside, engaged her in conversation, gone sausage fingered and got her doing me up. I have a special pathetic expression that I wear that normally works for these circumstances….

This was not so simple though. As it was a business trip I had a more formal coat…. A mac of my own to be precise, as opposed to an anorak style. I’ve written little about this before but I love being buttoned into a mac at least as much as I like being zipped into an anorak or Parka. As an adult though, others are less likely to button up a coat for you than they are to do up a zip. Most people recognize that zips can be awkward beasts, but buttons just aren’t are they? Surely everyone can do them up. There’s just one argument against what I’ve just said in my case though. Sadly, I can become a bit arthritic, particularly in cold and/or damp conditions – which sometimes means I genuinely DO struggle with my mac’s buttons….

I popped it on, undone and went outside. I’m naturally gregarious anyway and I’d already figured she was too, judging by her career choice which I figured necessitated that, and one or two things she had said when photographing me earlier. Her response to the sight of me still took me a bit by surprise though…

“Oi!! Are you trying to nick my job??” I deliberately looked quizzical and she went on to say that she was commenting about the fact I had what she termed as a “flashermac” on. That put me off for a minute. I love macs, but I hate that association that they have gained over the years. How can such beautiful garments be associated with something so downright distasteful??

Anyway, back to the moment that needed seizing. Before I could give her any sort of witty response, she reached out and touched my mac on the sleeve…..

“Hold on a moment. This is a rubberized one isn’t it?”

Now she was obviously one mac devotee wouldn’t you say?? Based on the fact that she recognised that so swiftly.

She was right. The mac I was wearing came from a rainwear supplier near Kew Gardens a few years back. It’s the same beige colour as all the paparazzi were wearing, and single breasted with buttons that conceal when done up. I asked her how she had guessed it was rubberized…. Her response was to the point….

“The noise you make….. and that smell!!” Then she continued… “Actually…. It’s a nice smell. Mine doesn’t have those features.”

The rain was incessant. She held an umbrella above her head, though her hat was still on, and despite the fact she was smoking, she kept the cigarette balanced and clenched between her lips, talking out of the corner of her mouth so she could caress my mac’s sleeve with the other hand…. This was amazing.

It seemed impossible but the rain grew heavier still. Her mac had been flapping undone, but suddenly, without warning, cigarette still between lips, she nimbly began buttoning up with her spare right hand (left hand still holding umbrella). When done she looked even more glorious.

Then naughtiness got the better of me. I pointed out that her mac had a buckled belt and picked its two loose ends up….

“Bet you can’t fasten that with one hand….”

She looked at me sheepishly……..

I did the belt up……….

“Thank you……………..”

I told her it was a pleasure, and began fiddling with my own buttons, pretty pathetically. I pointed out my arthritic condition to her……. This prompted her Irish lilting voice into action…..

“Awwww. Come here……… Let me have a look now………………!”

She handed me the umbrella and proceeded to button me up and do my own buckled belt for me. Being buttoned up is totally different to being zipped up, but at least as enjoyable. Zipping up tends to start suddenly, with massive intensity by a sensitive part of the body underneath. Typically, buttoning up is the opposite. The person doing it starts at the top and works down, with the intensity growing slowly to an absolute crescendo at the bottom. This procedure certainly matched that expectation, and I genuinely believe she actually noticed the impact she’d had as she did up my lowest raincoat button. Ironically, that button was the one that made her fumble longest and most – possibly because I was struggling to keep both feet on the ground. She could hardly have missed what was happening as she had crouched nearer and nearer the ground with each of my buttons as she conquered them. The lowest one was at eye level when she began to meddle with it….

This was one spectacular lady, even if she was wearing a Man’s mac. It was unusual as male macs go, because, even though it fastened to the right, something made it look less masculine. I don’t know what it was. Most Men’s macs look like they are so male they could leave the toilet seat up, but somehow her one didn’t. It may have been because the buttons were about the size you would normally find on a Ladies mac. They’re often bigger on Men’s macs aren’t they? I fell to wondering whether she had replaced the original buttons with these ones herself, to add femininity… I wondered lots more about her too - and probably will forever.

Oh, and by the way. The convention was rubbish – but I’m glad I went!!

Andy