The Idler, Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Watch the hemlines

THE LADIES must not take it amiss if their legs are suddenly being paid unduly close attention by stockbrokers and others in the field of finance. It seems the Hemline Index is back in vogue.

The Hemline Index was developed by Professor George Taylor at the University of Pennsylvania, way back in 1926. He posited that women's hemlines fluctuate with the economy. The better the economy is performing, the higher the hemline.

He seemed to be vindicated when hemlines overnight dropped virtually to the ground in 1929, this coinciding with the great Wall Street crash.

Now a New York financial journal, Business Insider, has caused a flutter by conducting a survey of women's fashion that shows conclusively – or so it says – that skirts are getting shorter again. Ergo, the economy is beginning to perform, confidence is returning. Stocks and shares rise and fall with women's hemlines, they say. (Remember the Swinging Sixties and the mini?)

It's caused some controversy. A New York fashion designer says it's all nonsense, hemlines follow the dictates of fashion, not economics. They go up and down all the time, "just like the stock exchange".

Yes, but isn't that exactly what Prof Taylor said in the first place? If hemlines are going up and down right now, isn't that exactly what the stock exchanges of the world are doing? The point is, are they connected?

It's an intriguing notion. Perhaps Dr James Greener, the investment analyst who so often shares his grumpy thoughts with us, can be persuaded to conduct his own research into the correlation between women's skirt lengths and the economic outlook.

Maybe what the world economy needs is something really drastic like a Lady Godiva. I leave it to James.

Olympics

 

POST-EVENT Olympics analysis. What's 120mm in diameter, silver and covered in dust?

The CD of the Australian national anthem.

 

 

 

Bloody nose

A COUPLE of years ago a senior naval officer told a parliamentary select committee that one of the reasons we need a submarine fleet is that we might need to give the Americans a bloody nose.

With our brand-new, platinum-plated, diamond studded, R5 billion submarine fleet of three craft now totally out of commission in dry dock, Barack Obama must be in a blue funk.

As Churchill might have said: Some nose! Some blood!

Nordic saga

X-RAY apparatus at Fiumcino airport, in Rome, picked up something strange on the moving baggage belt that takes luggage from the check-in desks to where it is despatched to be loaded onto the aircraft.

The mystery object turned out to be a 36-year-old Norwegian tourist, asleep in the foetal position. It seems he somehow clambered over an unmanned desk, got on the belt then fell asleep. As he was the worse for strong liquor, he was unable to give the airport authorities a coherent account of how he got there.

Here's a worthy addition to the Icelandic sagas.

Stompies?

 

WHILE there's a lucifer to light your fag … Archeaologists in Israel had thought at first that certain cylindrical objects of clay and stone found at a place called Sha'ar HaGolan were cultic phallic symbols.

But now it's believed they were the earliest known matches – fire-sticks which were swivelled at high speed backward and forward in notches on "fire boards" 8 000 years ago. This generated heat and caused flame.

We wait for news of prehistoric stompies.

 

Tailpiece

TWO WOMEN came before wise King Solomon, dragging between them a young man.

"This young man agreed to marry my daughter," said one.

"No! He agreed to marry my daughter," said the other.

And they haggled before the king until he called for silence.

"Bring me my biggest sword," said Solomon, "And I shall hew the young man in half. Each of you shall receive a half."

"Sounds good to me," said the first woman.

But the other cried out: "Oh Sire, do not spill innocent blood! Let the other woman's daughter marry him."

The wise king did not hesitate a moment. "This man must marry the first lady's daughter!" he proclaimed.

"But she was willing to have him hewed in two!" the king's court exclaimed.

"Indeed," said wise King Solomon. "That shows she is the true mother-in-law."

Last word

He who fears he shall suffer, already suffers what he fears. - Michel de Montaigne