Dressed To Impress

In the course of my day-to-day work, I frequently have to look at websites relating to international oil and gas developments.

Doing a bit of research into a project in Angola, I found the wonderful photograph above, taken at a "blessing ceremony" for the project.

If this photograph is supposed to encourage investment in Angola, I'm pretty sure it sails fairly wide of the mark.

Between the five cheery wee souls seen here, not one of them could be arsed to crack a smile. Maybe that's unfair - we've all been caught out by the photographer pressing the button at the wrong time, making us look like we've struggling with a troublesome case of constipation when, in fact, we're merely "between smiles".

But even if these guys were caught unawares, their dress sense is astonishing. Before anyone points it out, I know downtown Luanda isn't exactly Paris, New York or London.
But none of these guys is dressed like any of the others.

Take the guy on the left - blue boiler suit, and pencil tucked into his breast pocket. So he's probably an engineer, and dressed in an appropriate fashion.

But the next guy along obviously thinks he's a gangster. Unfortunately, his look is let down bu the fact that he's wearing plastic sunglasses and an un-ironed shirt.

Next to him, we have Patrick Trueman from Eastenders. Times have obviously been hard in the Trueman household since he was robbed and left for dead, but he's determined to keep going, even with a battered hat, ill-matching shirt and tie combo and trousers pulled up to his nipples.

Then we've got former Leeds United defender Michael Duberry. He may have been an England international at one point, but now he's slumming it in Angola, wearing a shirt fashioned out of a pair of curtains. THAT's how far Leeds have fallen.

But the award for best dressed nutter at the blessing ceremony goes to the attractive gentleman on the far right of the shot. Given that this is a blessing ceremony, I'm guessing he's some kind of witch doctor or holy man. Back in the glory days of his profession, he'd have been wearing a loin cloth fashioned from rhino hide, a necklace of peacock feathers and a hat made from a human skull.

However, in these more modern and civil times, he's reduced to wearing a charity shop polo shirt, a hideous blue tablecloth and a fake Man Utd tammy, worn in an inventive "Wee Willy Winky" style.

It's rare that I can consider myself well-dressed, but I think a visit to Angola would probably just about swing it.