bow ties
Of recent times I have been invited to a couple of dinners. One was my awards dinner, which I will try and fill you in on at another time, and the other is the Wisden dinner.
For the awards dinner the dress code was lounge suits. In Australia you can wear a suit to just about anything and it won’t be a problem.
But for the Wisden dinner I have to wear black tie.
Now after a great deal of research I realised there is no way around black tie. You just have to wear a fucking bow tie and stupid suit. Thongs/jandals/flipflops are also not permitted.
I’ve never worn a bow tie before, and I’ve never been to anything that black tie was even mentioned.
When I talked to one of my English friends, he said he had a tux in his closet, I can’t say any of my Australian friends ever owned one, I doubt many of them have ever worn one.
It is things like cufflinks and tuxedos that show me the difference between Australia and England.
Why the hell would anyone need a Tuxedo? Surely a suit does the same thing, it says, “hey, I have enough money to have a suit, I aint no bum.”
A tuxedo is a way of saying, “hey, I don’t just have money, I can afford to burn some on this stuffy assed fruit suit”.
I will get a tux though, just so I can go to these toffy assed parties and then bag them to you guys.


Wish you’d stop tarring all of us with the tux-wearing, swan-eating, paid education brush.
Yes, there is such a brush.
The blog is called, literally another aussie in London, not, some aussie bloke in the north of England. Plus, it was one of my working class friends, a suave working class boy, who told me to buy a tux.
Men look nice in black tie.
Americans call it a tux. British call it a dinner jacket. (I am tarred with that brush).
You’re dipped in that paint can.
I’ll look forward to seeing you in Black Tie, Jrod. Make sure you wear your hat, too (the floppy green one). That will make you distinctive.
Incidentally, black tie is a slightly moveable feast. You don’t have to wear a black bow tie for a start (the deputy editor of Wisden has a mustard-yellow one). Nor is a tux a necessity. I know one cricket writer who wears a crushed velvet smoking jacket number to the Wisden dinner. You should get yourself one of those.
And once you’ve mastered black tie, you can then get yourself morning dress….
I was thinking, crushed velvet smoking jacket, black bow tie, Godzilla t shirt, and cwb trucker hat, what do you think?