The Tortoise and The Barbour

My Barbour Beaufort has seen more action in the past several weeks than it has in a year. So much so that I finally just left it in the car last week. And if the weather gods are correct this weekend, the launch of LFG’s soccer season may yet again be postponed tomorrow.

I dropped LFG off last weekend and on the drive home, the clouds negated the need for shades so I toss my old Anglo American sunglasses over on the passenger seat. One stoplight later and I glanced over and did kind of a double-take on the mixture of colour and texture beside me. God knows I’m no photographer. As a matter of fact, those of you who’ve been reading my drivel long enough realize that if anything, I take pride in shitty pictures. But the way my specs were lounging over on its new found waxy-musky Barbour green chaise motivated a picture.

Glimpsing over at my passenger seat caused me to see England. London more specifically I reckon. I just thought that tortoise shell and hunter green appeared destined for each other and that England was their matchmaker. Blue-Black-Green... aggregated sublimely. 

Perhaps interior designers these days tisk-tisk at a husband requesting a hunter green library or study. It’s been done…and done…and done. But there must be a reason why it endures. And the mottled tortoise/lacquer browns seems to be a natural complement to dark green.

Hell if it's good enough for Ralph's dressing room then it's good enough for mine.

I don’t know why I like some of the things I like but I just do. And this colour assemblage, leastways to me, never becomes redundant or tired. I can’t find a word this morning that satisfies me. Dark blue-black-green and tortoisity equals what? Gravitas, solid bearing, sturdiness, masculinity...an inviting ensconcement? Tortoisity by the way, is pronounced tor-TOSS-ity in case you wondered. Or tor-TOYS-ity if you are from exit 18 on the Turnpike.

I think I’ll settle for “an inviting ensconcement” since God knows, I’d rather make up my own phrases than seek paucity and clarity in…well frankly, in about any damn thing. Shut up. And ensconce this.

I had a dark green bedroom before I was married and I have one at present. And dark green…complemented by the tortoise/lacquer marriage found in book cases or trim-work make for a more enduring marriage than I could ever muster. Mine was more tainted liquor than tortoise/lacquer. Hold me.

And you’ve gotta love this. The ever so antiquated, inefficient and delightfully British way of rounding up the Farrow&Ball custom green colour for such a legacy client. This from a Farrow& Ball-buster I was once in correspondence with…“The people at Lord's Cricket Ground have had to wait 6 weeks for a scrap of paper with their cricket pavilion paint recipe on it to be retrieved. It's called Pavilion Green and F&B will only mix it up for Lords.” I’m thinking that this was the discussion after they hung up the phone with the boys from St. Johns Wood… “Algernon, where’s that slapdash daub of Lord’s green?” Wouldn't you know it; they’ve requested another go at it after only twenty-seven years.”

 The boys at South Audley…Purdeys to be precise, do a fine job of mottled tortoisity. Perhaps not as much dark green over there but plenty of gravitas none the less.

I felt foolish after someone explained to my why the columns fronting Audley House had missing chunks. South Audley Street was the recipient of a few bombs here and there during the Blitz. Missing chunks. I had a fraternity brother who could be counted on to have a few too many and try to blow chunks…regularly. Not very surprising in frattyland, right? But in this case, Chunks was his dog.

How ‘bout a pair of Purdey guns? A vintage Mercedes 300SL will cost you about the same. The patinated tortoisity above is stunning.

And so Lady Audley had a secret. Butcept it was well secreted…behind dark green swathings of inauthentic posturing and downright lies. Note to self…

But this little Lady Barbour is unimpeachable in hunter green gravity. Do not argue this with me.

Moving on to motorsports…British Racing Green seems to provide an incredible amount of je ne sais quoi to any recipient of Britain’s irrefutable racing colour. Butcept the British wouldn't respond well to the Frogesque je ne sais quoi badge. And yes, the consecrated juju of British Racing green demands that colour be spelled in its original form.

Certainly German Racing Silver seems to me an appropriate designation for the Prussian magnificence manifest in their racing legacy.

And look at how just a hint of British Racing Green adds cadenced panache to this uber Panamericana contender.

One more time. Restrained panache I say. Restrained panache. Something I'll never master.

Perhaps the Prussian purists would be aghast at this temporal manifestation of God being painted green. I think it simply adds dignity to the dignified.

Nothing much needs to be said here. Just look. And look again.

And again...with a little Triumph in your eyes.

One more time please. "Dunna nunna nunna nunna nunna nunna nunna nunna JAG MAN!!

I’ve always felt that American cars in red simply announced…“red car-redneck” but a Ferrari painted almost anything but red seems unseemly. Maybe black but really, a Ferrari needs to be red.

“French Racing...Robins Egg Blue?” I have nothing to say here. Ferme la bouche.

So all those words I struggled with to define the gravity of dark green remain inadequate…more so when I try to verbosify how great this looks to me. Maybe…simply…”appropriate” is the word I’m looking for…or perhaps “correct”. Or maybe nothing needs to be said. And that would be difficult for me. Those of you who’ve met me know this firsthand.

Just look at how “right-appropriate-correct” English Cut’s Thomas Mahon’s Rover seems in British Racing Green. Wonder how his lovely little firstborn chap likes riding in daddy’s Rover?

Word on the street is that the Queen has a bunch of them. Rovers that is.

Complementary tortoise. It just seems like the right accessory to set-off dark green. I saw this trunk on Portobello Road last year and would love to have bought it but getting it home was problematic. And I won’t be buying anything for the rest of 2011 anyway.

Patinated tortoise gone good.

And another example of mottled, patinated tortoisity well played.

Mottled, antiquated tortoisity gone bad. Real bad. I mean really. What is this? A damned butterfly on freakin’ steroids? The Barry damn Bonds of Monarch butterflies?

This ain't antiquated tortoisity. This is petrified…calcificated Tangesque absurdity. There’s good Tang and bad Tang. This is Tang gone bad. Real bad.

So let me end this ramble on a more aesthetically pleasing visual note. Here’s to green. Dark…almost black-green. And the majesty of those like this little Princess who don it.

And here’s to complementary tortoisity…and all its accoutremontical involvement with making base colours so damned sublime.

Onward. Hoping for soccer tomorrow. Even if I have to stand there Barbour clad.

ADG, II