Sandwiches Corner

Having bought my first iPod recently after finally succumbing to the pressure to validate myself as a 21st century human being by irritating fellow commuters and standing in shop doorways shuffling though my collection of ultra-rare Hungarian bassoon concertos, I did find myself wondering if I might eventually run out of places to ensconce such items whilst ‘on the move’, what with today’s hectic, non-stop 24 hour lifestyle and so on.

Obviously, manufacturers are alert to this, hence the attempts to cram as many features into every device as possible, meaning the average mobile phone not only allows me make prank phone calls to anyone across the globe at the drop of a hat and to text my therapist 300 times per night, but can also alert the authorities to my precise position on the globe to within the nanometre, suggest a suitable accompaniment to dinner based on my blood alcohol level at that time and whichever toastie I may be having that evening, emit a miniature grappling hook at high speed to assist in the scaling of moderately sized buildings on a whim, and even create a pan-dimensional whirlpool vortex simply as a mobile crapper for when caught out in the wild (an enormous waste of energy I know, but I just can’t resist that tiny reel of loo roll it spools out afterwards.)

Unless you’re a jogger or middle-aged German tourist the bumbag, or fannypack as our American cousins would have it, should remain firmly out of the question. As is so often the case, for all our trumpeted technological sophistication, it’s nature that suggests the most obvious answer, on this occasion in the ridiculous the shape of the kangaroo. Previously only of interest when kitted out with a pair of boxing gloves and a hideous temper, the kangaroo has come into his own in this gadget obsessed age with the inclusion of a roomy carry-pouch fitted as standard on all models.

Taking the marsupial pugilists as our cue, Sandwiches Corner Surgical Procedures are now happy to offer a unique lipo-bagging service, in which we use powerful domestic hoovers to rapidly remove excess fat from the stomach and hip area, before flipping over the remaining skin flap and artfully stitching up the sides with a colourway of your choice, leaving you with a handy repository for those can’t do without items that you wouldn’t want to, in fact can’t, leave home without. Never misplace your belongings on the train again! Forget the worry of leaving incriminating evidence at your next crime scene. Your skin-tote can be fully customised by an in-house artist with a tribal pattern, meaningless foreign phrase or celebrity portrait of your choice, and is guaranteed roomy enough to carry anything up to the size and weight of an average car battery, although capacity may vary dependent on initial weight.

Prices from £10,000.

If there’s a benchmark point in life at which it becomes simply embarrassing to maintain the delusion that you’re still more or less the young, slender, perhaps fashionable kind of person that it’s even remotely conceivable may be considered attractive by similar persons, it’s when purchasing a pair of jeans means painful acknowledgement of the fact your waist size has begun to exceed that of your legs.

A first it might be possible to brush this off as a temporary aberration, maybe think “ok, i’ll go for the 34 inch waist, lay off the battenburg and drop that couple of inches again in no time”… this is a lie and you should stop it now for everyone’s sake.

Accept the fact that you are now technically fatter than you are tall. Put those drainpipes back on the peg, return the ‘distressed’ skinny fit t-shirt with the ironic cartoon print from your childhood to Topshop, and use the refund to pick yourself up a some elasticated waist slacks, or possibly a generous pair of chinos, because you are officially now your Dad, and it’s all over.

Having begrudgingly accepted this, it becomes easier to adapt to your new life as a regular perpetrator of fashion crime, such as the adoption of enormous turn-ups necessitated by the impossible task of finding legwear which both accommodates your girth whilst bearing any resemblance to the length stated on the label.It may be popular with the kids, but I just can’t afford to let my the hems of my jeans scrape along the floor, shredding to pieces until they’ve attained sufficient clearance from the ground so that I might make it to the local shop for a bag of Werther’s Originals and the Daily Mail without injuring myself, and possibly others.

Embrace the turn-up, and you may even find it rewards you in small and baffling ways. As well as affording you the expected gifts of accumulated food, gravel and hair, come laundry day you’ll be treated to trouser exotica the likes of which you could only have previously imagined. Unfolding my jeans for the wash this week (waist 36 / leg 32, but more realistically, leg 82) I was surprised to find not only a small domino, but a wasp, sadly deceased.

I like to think he’d been practising for an upcoming tournament, or maybe even just using it to learn rudimentary counting skills. Either way, two things have become very clear; firstly, I need to do some exercise, and secondly, I really need to wash my trousers more often.