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Saturday, 6 April 2002 |
Most of us spend around 8 hours a day unconscious, in bed. That’s a third of a lifetime, and some scientists seem to think that we really should be sleeping longer than that, up to 12 hours each day.
I figure that such an important activity should be done in some degree of comfort, and since I am not a believer in carting these silly-looking, oversized, over-engineered objects called beds around, preferring a simple futon on the floor, I compensate for my minimalism with the best quality bedlinen.
My English former wife had been a Norland nanny and was exposed to the decadent pleasures of Egyptian cotton by her various employers amongst the globetrotting rich and famous. She passed her passion for the real thing on to me, and I have never been able to sleep on anything less ever since.
So it was natural that, when I returned to Oz, I would go in search of more of the same. Not so easy as it turned out. Firstly there I found there was no such thing as Egyptian cotton sold in the shops here. Ask for it and occasionally you will find an assistant who has been to Europe and knows what it is, and how wonderful it is, and they will reminisce about it fondly. You could find a variety of high thread count cotton fabric in some stores’ Manchester departments sold under the name Percale back then. But other stores were using the same name to mean that horrible mixture of cotton and polyester that feels so rough to the skin and insulates very poorly.
Then I noticed that at the quality end of fabric retailing Sateen has now replaced Percale as the name of choice. Sateen is defined by most dictionaries as a cotton fabric with a somewhat glossy finish resembling satin. All the Sateen I have seen and bought has anything but a satinlike sheen. I thought Percale was a better name, as it means “a closely woven cotton fabric used for sheets and clothing” and the close weave is as important as the fineness of the cotton threads. These polyester/cotton mixes are not closely woven at all and nor is the thread particularly fine.
Incidentally, it appears that only in Australia is the place name Manchester used to stand for cotton goods. At its peak as a mill town Manchester made no more than 12 percent of all English cotton exports. I wonder how then it came to be used in this way?
1:10:54 PM 
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I was just now flicking through the Perth White Pages phone book and noticed that Stepehen Mallinder of legendary Sheffield band Cabaret Voltaire lives nearby in the suburb of Bayswater.
Mallinder gigs every so often as a DJ in Perth, and now might be producing again, according to the following news item grabbed from the News section of the Cab Vol website.
Shaun Ryder (Happy Mondays, Black Grape) recorded his new album Clown and Pet Sounds at Off World Sounds’ studio in Perth, Australia. It’s rumoured that Mal produced it.
God help Perth when Shaun Ryder was here. Not even his own brother and bandmate from The Happy Mondays Paul Ryder can stand him any more, apparently, due in large part to Shaun’s rampant egomania and colossal drug habit.
12:24:49 PM
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© Copyright 2002 Karl-Peter Gottschalk.
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