venta

Today, as anyone who wakes up listening to 6music will know, is Wear Your Old Band T-shirt To Work Day.

Last year, my office participated in this en masse. The guy who (at the time) orchestrated Formal Friday most weeks emailed round and instructed everyone: band t-shirts. A surprising number of people joined in.

This year, I suspect it might be just a couple of us.

It was quite a dilemma for me. Legally speaking, my oldest band t-shirt is the canonical Celtic knot NMA shirt. It got dragged out last year for a 6music gig, and I remembered why I don't wear it any more. Not only is it faded to a gruesome grubby greenish black, and twisted so the print is wonky, it has stretched. And shrunk. It is now very short and very wide, and probably fits no human. So not that one.

Next oldest is a Smiths shirt, advertising Rank.I'm not a massive fan of the live album, and the shirt is a cheap knock-off that also hasn't really retained its shape (and was wonky in the first place). Not that one.

There's the long-sleeved Cure shirt that belonged to my first boyfriend. It is a beautiful tie-dyed green shirt with the Boys Don't Cry logo on the back. Sadly it is ruined by a ghastly portrait of R Smith on the front, executed in blobby neons. Definitely not that one.

Actually, there are a couple of plausible NMA long-sleeved shirts, but they are in a different bit of the wardrobe and I forgot about them. There's my Death to the Pixies shirt, but that looks a bit obscene for work (it isn't, but it looks it). I wore the Indelicates last year, and Zombina has stretched beyond all plausibility. So today...

I shall mostly be advertising the sadly-departed Rome Burns.

Originally I had a black shirt underneath. ChrisC pointed out how much it underscored the very non-blackness of Rome Burns. Well, it is meant to be an old band shirt. However, as I combed my hair the seam split up the inner arm. So, on to the next thinnest undershirt... Which happened to be pale blue. Not the best colour, but thinness was imperative. It is an old shirt and is not as, um, spacious as it once was :)

Anyone else?