A Town of Tees At Iffyton

You won’t find Iffyton High Street or Iffydom on Google Maps, don’t bother searching I’ve looked, but what the heck, who needs reality when we’ve got the net? I mean I’m looking out of the window and what do I see? Practically a force nine gale bending the treesas if they were elastic and seagulls careering into each other in a vain attempt to fly. The fact is it’s not always a good day to go out, and when you don’t have to you have a few options, go back to bed, get on with some work, watch the dreaded boob tube, surf (yawn), Twitter with your mates, eat, drink some tea, write a blog post (ahem), okay there’s far more to life than that, but one option I hadn’t considered until now was taking a stroll down Iffyton High Street where every shop is a t-shirt store (well almost bar a few empty shops and a music venue (Iffy Voice), a Newsagents which has all the latest Iffy news, and erm… Betfair, erm which is a gambling site and absolutely nothing to do with anything,

I suppose they’re hard up for cash or love to have a flutter between tees, I couldn’t find a pub either, I wonder what does virtual lager taste like? Probably like two pence pieces (as usual). There’s no sign of a curry house in Iffyton, but I suppose it’s a little early in the day, still it’s great after a few beers. One thing I really like is the Countdown Giveaway where if you catch it at the right time you can win a free tee! Nice! Okay I haven’t seen it working so far, but it’s worth keeping your eyes peeled for that one. There’s also Iffy TV where according to the site their Nan likes to watch her grandson going Radio Rental (I guess that’s cockney slang for “mental”) on TV, right now it comprises of two videos about the site. From what I can gather the site is run by a loony called Uncle Iffy who used to be the frontman for an obscure band called “The Magnificent Seven” who gambled his remaining pennies on Iffy TV whilst his brother Peter Joyce (I’m guessing on the spelling here it’s all from a video) who owns Totally Original T-Shirts (t-shirt printers) called in a favour to help promote his wares and thus they joined forces. So much for the potted history.

The saving grace for Iffyton are their t-shirt stores, some undoubtedly better than others, but I’m sure there are plenty of t-shirt addicts out there who have had dreams similar to www.iffyton.co.uk – tee shirt shop after tee shirt shop as far as the eye can see. Well no, right now there are nine as far as I can tell, but that’s great for starters! Okay let’s take a stroll down Iffyton High Street…

A Kick Up The Grass

If you’re sick of your team’s footie shirt and want something that invokes a few laughs down the local or at the match then try out A Kick Up The Grass which essentially offers a line in funny football tees in the style that aesthetically mixes up styles from British comic book classics like Viz, The Beano and Roy of The Rovers. There’s definitely a talented artist behind these creations and they definitely work for/run TOT Shirts. If you love the beautiful game you should find a few tees to your liking here.

Rebel Or Be Damned

This one’s for the punks, again they’re rather humorous tees and they’re certainly in your face but I’m not too personally keen on the old cut and paste style of most of their range. Still I’m an old git and I don’t sport a safety pin through my nose so what do I know, I even remember the original punks in the 1970s. Mum took my sister and me wandering along the King’s Road whilst she window-shopped I watched hoards of Japanese tourists paying to take photos of skinny lanky guys with mohicans standing by telephone boxes, eventually you could buy postcards of them everywhere and the tourists stopped paying. The shame is they weren’t the real punks, real punks couldn’t afford fancy leathers and amazing haircuts, or so John Lydon would tell you. Anyway, punky tees at Rebel Or Be Damned.

GetinShirty

Kind of a strange name for a heavy metal t-shirt label, I’d have though something more like deathcore or hell shirts would be better but still I did find this old Judas Priest tee there which kinda rocks…

Made In England

Tiny bit touristy but still worth a laugh, Made In England reminds me of those stalls you get around Trafalgar Square, funnily enough me and my other half used to rent a flat down the road from a guy who I can now only recall calling “The Pigeon Man”. He owns around 20 or so flats in the area and a nice big house, he made his fortune from selling pigeon seed in London, in Trafalgar Square, yep where everyone gets pooped on, that’s the place. So if you want to know who’s fault it is look my old landlord. Anyway I think they’ve banned all that now, it cost too much to clean up. I have taken a liking to the Michael Caine tee, it’s true his name really is Maurice Micklewhite – I mean if there ever was a showbiz name that had to be it.

Cream Tease

This is a bona-fide cool t-shirt store, kinda graffiti, little bit punk, off the wall, on the edge and a range of other superlatives which essentially means definitely worth a visit. Unlike the other sites it actually has its own domain name at www.creamteasestore.com (although just like the others the html title is “Store Home” which can’t be impressing Google too much). Still asides nerdy seo criticisms it’s got some very funky tees on offer, there’s a great Burlesque Review tee for the girls and a funky Exel ‘KinEvil tee for the lads.

Royal T

If you like toon tees you’ll love this site, Royal T offer a very nice line in toon celebs, I don’t mean Southpark or Simpsons, I mean real celebs turned toon. I particularly like their take on The Beatles, The A-Team and Monkey. They really offer a generous slice of UK nostalgia here, I know a lot of people of my generation watched Monkey on BBC2 at 6pm every Friday night but I’d be surprised if any others do. It’s been quite a while since I saw Pigsy, Tripitaka, the fishy one who I can’t remember right now and of course Monkey. He’s nothing to do with the Monkees by the way, he’s badly dubbed, has enormous sideburns, whistles for a ride on a cloud and is based on an old Chinese Myth. Ah well, I enjoyed it anyway.

A DJ Is Not A Musician

Wow, what a terrible idea for a t-shirt label! I guess they thought there were enough DJ and hip hop tees out there and wanted to make a stand, but there’s a difference between niche and commercial suicide. You have to counteract an argument with something rather spectacular, and if the alternative to all the amazing hip-hop, dance and DJ tees I’ve seen out there is this then I’d rather wear a cardboard box with a few holes cut out for my head and arms. Sure DJ’s aren’t all musicians, I’ve studied at Point Blank London and some of them there sucked, but some of them could do everything; play guitar, drums, bass, sing, play keyboards and program synths, mix, produce, I don’t see the point of this label… you have to be better than what you criticise for a start! At least have the greatest tees I have ever seen in my life, that would help your argument. I almost left this site out but realised it would make me as petty as them. So nah…

End Of The Line

Hey that’s more like it, cheap and funny, a great combo! End Of The Line offers some hilarious tees – probably only if you’re British and getting on though hah – still it’s nice to see some of the old corkers still doing the rounds. I remember the hoo hah about Master Bates and Seaman Staines in Captain Pugwash as a kid, now correct me if I’m wrong but this was an urban myth as far as I can recall, neither character actually had a rude name, or am I going mad here?** Anyway expect cheap classics galore here including Elvis mixing the decks (see even Elvis was a DJ), Jesus with a ghetto blaster, and Marilyn Monroe giving the carpet a good hoovering.

Ah well I’m off to my lowly local high street for some non-fashion related vital supplies like food, booze and other junk. Back to reality where the weather’s bad, seagulls frequently poo on my head and where all the shops have predominantly nothing to do with t-shirts :/ C’est la vie.

**There is a persistent urban legend, originating in the now-defunct UK newspaper the Sunday Correspondent, which ascribes sexually suggestive names – such as Master Bates (masturbates), Seaman Staines (semen stains), and Roger (meaning to have sex with) the Cabin Boy – to Captain Pugwash ‘s characters. John Ryan successfully sued both the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian newspapers in 1991 for printing this legend as fact.