T-Shirt Friday 24 !

Cosmic Crofton Park!

It's been an extremely busy time at the T-Shirt Friday HQ, Reasons for this can be read below, hence why there hasn't been any T-Shirt Friday posts for so long... However... that's all set to change as T-Shirt Friday is back to rock your world in more ways then one! Still in it's traditional spot of appearing on Fridays, Still ready to engage you in wondrous tales of the apparel type! So let us not dither any further and jump straight into it, big toe first... the T-Shirt Friday Quiz Conundrum, how did you get on with it? it was so long ago can you remember what the last question was? If your either a Little Feat fan or a Rolling Stones fan you may well have known the answer straight away, if not it may have taken some digging... the famous guitar player that appears on 'A Apolitical Blues' is.... wait for it ..... Mick Taylor! did you get it right? If so how will you celebrate? Perhaps you could crack open a bottle of Taylor's port!

Today's T-Shirt can be found directly here: http://www.101apparel.com

Have you ever found your self lost in the cosmic splendour of music? - perhaps curling back into your own mind, while listening to rainbow streamed guitar sounds - blowing your brain out with riffs of ultimate power that seem to be echoing from psychedelic signals originating from somewhere out there in infinite space and beyond the very stars themselves, causing time itself to fold inwards into black holes that give birth to symphonic universes beyond our human understanding? - If so, perhaps you have also been to Crofton Park?

However you also may have never actually heard of Crofton Park... much like us. Let me take you right back to the beginning, perhaps not as far back as when Dinosaurs stomped around the earth, leaving footprints the size of Brockley. But to around January 2014. After the big event of last year and Miss Russell becoming Mrs Gibbons, we thought perhaps it might be time to start looking for a slightly less multi-staircase'd place to live, So we began our search for a new home. We began by taking my Mum and Dad for a trip to West Norwood and it soon became obvious that we were probably going to be heading in that South Easterly direction. Although perhaps we would branch out from the Norwood area and look around at other neighbouring ones, we spent some very memorable weekends in both Forest Hill and Brockely but there was one Saturday when we set foot in a place that sits in-between the both of them...

Crofton Park, is technically still really in Brockley but way back a little bit after those stomping Dinosaurs, when Steam Trains chugged there way across the landscape in 1892... Another station was opened in Brockley. There were already two 'Brockley Station' and 'Brockley Lane Station' so the third one was given a name that would differentiate it. 'Crofton Park Sation' was a part of the railway line informally known as 'The Catford Loop' the Station eventually gave it's name to the small pocket area that surrounded it. If you go to Crofton Park these days you'll discover both the Rivoli Ballroom and The Brockley Jack, a pub of which Mrs Gibbons and myself would recommend whole heartily, having spent quite a bit of time there (once when we just walked in to use there loo but thought better of it and walked straight back out again!) - It has a Whales shoulder blade bone hanging above the fireplace... The Rivoli Ballroom was originally The Crofton Park Picture Palace. Both places as with Crofton Park in general, are steeped in history...

Our trainers crossed from what was Brockley pavement, to Crofton Park pavement and along with the trainers I was wearing my usual attire, old jeans, un-matching socks and slightly battered old black fleece jacket, there was one thing different though... I was trying out a brand new t-shirt that Mrs Gibbons had very kindly bought me for Christmas! It was in fact the first time of wearing it, 'The Cosmic Dimension Music' T-Shirt was a fantastic Christmas surprise and it felt really good to be wearing it, as we made the momentous crossing into the unknown. As you enter into Crofton Park, one of the first sights is the cemetery and it was at this very point where the incident happened....

I will set the scene. As we walked along past the aforementioned Brockley and Ladywell cemetery we could see in our midst two gentlemen pushing along there children in pushchairs. We came to the corner of the road, that runs around the park area, our paths crossed with them and just at that very moment one of the chaps very gently whispered and to quote "Ace T-Shirt" without even stopping or acknowledging his appreciation any further. They both just continued on there way, as if nothing had happened. Both Mrs Gibbons and myself looked at the back of there heads as they gradually disappeared down the road we had just walked up. We then looked at each other, had the gentlemen really just said that? It was all a bit of a blur, we came to the conclusion that it really had happened, after all we had both heard it (all-be-it, only just) but we had and more over we felt better for it! Warm in the knowledge that a prospective place where we were considering living accepts the 'cosmic' in all of us!

...The funniest part about it all is that although we did see a couple of really beautiful houses in cosmic Crofton Park and liked the place very much, we ended up not putting an offer on any house in the area at all but in another dimension altogether...

Well here we are again, it's time for the T-Shirt Friday Quiz Conundrum question, which this week is... 'Cosmic Egg' was an album released by which Australian heavy rock band? and now all that is left for me to do is bid you a very cosmic weekend! until next time....


More info on the Cosmic? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic
More info on Brockley, Forest Hill &  Norwood - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brockley
More info on Crofton Park - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crofton_Park

It's T-Shirt Friday 7 !

Grow Your Own T-Shirt...... 

... and keep it well fed! Here is a question... and it's not the T-Shirt Friday Quiz Conundrum, although that is coming up in about 3 and a bit paragraphs down, the question to contemplate is: how important are T-shirts to you? Anyway while you're thinking that one over, here is the answer to last weeks T-Shirt Friday Quiz Conundrum, the question was: How large in square kilometers is Salar De Uyuni? and the answer is 10, 582 square kilometers! Wow! now that is big! Did you get it right? If you did or actually even if you didn't, why not celebrate anyway? maybe with a nice cool weak cordial drink - the salt flats are not only vast but very hot too!  Also put on some shorts, sandals and make out the summer is already here! Perhaps put on some Beach Boys, Jan & Dean or Mr Gasser & The Weirdos and go surfing in your bath?! Misaki the blogging dog... perhaps you should celebrate (as you got the answer right, almost a week ago) by having a giant jambone and putting on a Hawaiian style shirt?! Anyway I'll stop 'barking', on here is this weeks tee...

Sometimes keeping a T-shirt well nourished can have lasting affects! 

Today's T-Shirt is from an old friend : http://www.101apparel.com

Sometime ago now, the below T-shirt was doing what is does best and covering up the parts of me that shouldn't be on show, it's one of those t-shirts that you really, really feel comfortable in, you might say that it's a well lived in t-shirt, if you know what I mean? Anyway I found myself in Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road and about to pay for a couple of items. It was coming up to Miss Russell's birthday and I'd been hunting for a nice card and some wrapping paper. Just as I was about to leave the lady that had just served me, began to ask a question that has been asked (all be it in different forms) many times before "That's a really nice t-shirt, where did you get it from?" it's a tee that just seems to draw out that type of question in anyone that it meets, remarks were constantly being made at work and I've even been stopped in the street by complete strangers and asked about the 'Grow Your Own' t-shirt. In fact there was a time that whenever I put the shirt on I would make sure to memorise 101 Apparel's website so that I had a well rehearsed response ready for anyone that questioned the origin of the shirt. It's also a well travelled tee having been to China, New York and Southend on Sea! and true to form in each place at some stage of the journey, the very same question was brought up... In China, while we were staying in the Monastery at Emieishan, a Monk remarked on the t-shirt and then laughed at my belly! (Both the t-shirt and my stomach were growing!)

Sadly the t-shirt has now been retired of it's duties, for fear of it falling apart completely! It has many holes and has picked up a few dents and creases on the way. It now has a much slower pace of life, living in our chest of drawers, I do hope that it doesn't mind having less attention, but it has grown and climbed higher, reaching out with it's vinyl leaves, blossoming into a t-shirt with a full and varied career! Leaving it's roots in many places. It has been well nurtured and will always be very much loved.
What were your thoughts on the question asked above? Do you you have a t-shirt that is very important to you? a well lived t-shirt? The Grow Your Own t-shirt is possibly one of the most important t-shirts that was given to me (I do love all of my t-shirts but I have a very special affection for this one) It has a unique audio tree design, a really nice message about growing your own music and is just so comfortable to wear, but all of that taken in to account, the real reason why... is that it is the first t-shirt that Miss Russell gave to me.

Well it's time for this weeks T-Shirt Friday Quiz Conundrum, which is: What is the name of the designer that started and created 101 Apparel? A clue is, that he designed innovative covers and t-shirts for Ubiquity Records before setting up what is now 101 Apparel...