Ditto North Face and now Rab.

Both still make excellent quality outdoor kit. TNF has branched into leisure wear as well but their GTX jackets etc are as good as anybody else’s. Rab kit is still very well designed / made.

I unwittingly bought some SD produced Karrimor boots, I’m guessing quite soon after Karrimor were bought by SD. They were utter crap, I mean falling apart after a few months crap. I’d avoid SD on matter of principle, nowadays.

Instead, I’ve got some Salomons instead, they’re lovely. I got those because the Salomon trainers I bought 10 years ago have finally worn through the sole. I expect I’ll replace them with some more Salomons.

Electronic goods, especially TVs seem to be almost out-of-date when you carry then out of the shop – 1080, HD, 4K – people don’t buy to keep them for years these days.

In the past twenty years I have owned precisely two TVs. I got the first one repaired when it went wrong (it was a CRT, remember them, and unsurprisingly all the caps needed replacing after their shelf life was up). Had the current one for six years now. I’m not intending on buying a 4K TV just because “they’re available”. We’ll get another TV when this one eventually fails.

I have a similar attitude to PCs and mobile phones, phones are (minimum) a 3 year deal for me, a PC should go for 5. I finally stopped using the 10 year old PC (two replacement motherboards and one power supply) because the main disk has died and I’m not sure its worth keeping it going along any more.

My wife says I’m tight.

I think she might have a point.

I don’t like buy-cheap-buy-twice.

Both still make excellent quality outdoor kit. TNF has branched into leisure wear as well but their GTX jackets etc are as good as anybody else’s. Rab kit is still very well designed / made.

Like I say, a lot of it’s a niche outdoor brand getting popular, so all the hipsters say it’s shit.

I picked up a Mountain Hardwear fleece when in the US recently. It was a bargain price, $30 or something. It’s shit. The fabric quality is poor and the cut rubbish.

I thought they were meant to be high end, “technical” stuff?

Weren’t they set up by some guys who left NF because they were going to the fashion end of the market?