# Leather strap from lapel to breast pocket **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 20, 2013, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leather-strap-from-lapel-to-breast-pocket/664024 "2013-07-20T11:45:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leather-strap-from-lapel-to-breast-pocket/664024/21 "2013-07-23T13:51:26Z")
**arnesw** is right. I just saw an episode where he removes it to look at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leather-strap-from-lapel-to-breast-pocket/664024/22 "2013-07-23T15:30:12Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > I was thinking last night that a pince-nez was a better idea. > > Wodehouse regularly had characters that used them. E.g., [here’s](http://books.google.com/books?id=NxVhEv8HVVYC&lpg=PA181&ots=93F4Wbyxaj&dq=%22pince%20nez%22%20wooster&pg=PA181#v=onepage&q=%22pince%20nez%22%20wooster&f=false) a description of a character that even mentions the button loop. > > Read the Wikipedia article on [them](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pince_nez), the section on retention methods. > > Here’s some quotes and writings by Wodehouse that mention them: > > [http://www.hatsharpening.com/my-man-jeeves-ebook/doing-clarence-a-bit-of-good/](http://www.hatsharpening.com/my-man-jeeves-ebook/doing-clarence-a-bit-of-good/) > > [Madame Eulalie - The Strand (UK)](http://madameulalie.org/strand/Aunt_Agatha_Takes_the_Count.html) > > [The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mike, by P. G. Wodehouse](http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7423/7423-h/7423-h.htm) Thanks for cites. The sites, that is. Isn’t that first photo from the children’s carnival egg-and-spoon event where it was found that, contrary to all respect of the purity of the turf, one of entrants had been nobbled by being fed copious amounts of cake? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leather-strap-from-lapel-to-breast-pocket/664024/23 "2013-07-23T15:32:17Z")
Nm ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leather-strap-from-lapel-to-breast-pocket/664024/24 "2013-07-23T15:33:18Z")
Nm. Finger twitchy triple post. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leather-strap-from-lapel-to-breast-pocket/664024/25 "2013-07-23T16:47:38Z")
Unless I forget a major sticking point with Jeeves, my guess is that it’s not a monocle. My reasoning starts from Oofie Prosser’s monocle, which is a significant part of his description. This is in contradistinction to Bertie’s general sartorial fashion sense, although one must bear in mind his frequent misreadings of the social climate. In further contradistinction, if that’s the word I want, Bertie’s code, like that of all of his clan, is to never let down a pal, which includes handing over a quid or so. (Oofy, on the other hand, had moths living in his wallet.) As we know, Bertie drew the line when touched for a thousand, to pay for a production Florence Craye’s _Spindrift_. For those new to the biography of Bertie, Florence was a girl with whom he once had an “understanding,” but who tried to have him read Nietszche, whose views, as we know, are fundamentally unsound, which led to their romantic relationship being scuttled. However, to be true to the record, it must be said that Bertie was once conned out of a thousand of the best after hearing the piteous story of a _soi-disant_ man of the cloth who fraudulently claimed he had lost a pearl necklace. - Readers unfamiliar with brief recounts of the works and days of Wodehouse’s characters will quickly find that in such cases it is _comme il faut_ to affect Wodehouse’s style. The pleasure in giving niceties of English language such a thorough workout often entices the re-teller of his tales to run on, bringing in supernumerary characters or _minutiae_, which leaves the reader in more befuddlement than before. \*\* Wodehouse himself would spend weeks working out his plots, but would just bang out the books or stories when actually writing. For most of his fans, it takes a hell of a lot of time to write just a few grafs, I think due primarily to the grammatical precision required. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leather-strap-from-lapel-to-breast-pocket/664024/26 "2013-07-23T17:06:13Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > Thanks! Watch fob sounds most plausible. > > I couldn’t take a screenshot but I did find this: > > [http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/2200000/jeeves-and-wooster-jeeves-and-wooster-2251492-1024-673.jpg](http://images1.fanpop.com/images/photos/2200000/jeeves-and-wooster-jeeves-and-wooster-2251492-1024-673.jpg) > [@handsomeharry](#): > > I’d bet a jillion dollars it’s a monocle cord. Do you know how effin awkward a pocket watch in the breast pocket is?? Watches go in the vest pocket, or, for the hoi polloi, in the trouser pocket. Well, if that’s true, one of the oldest and memorable Jewish jokes–and surely the most memorable when adapted for quotidian use–will not work or must be adjusted. But since people don’t wear vest _or_ pocket watches any more the joke often has to be explained, which means its days are numbered. It has out-hoaried itself. ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2013, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leather-strap-from-lapel-to-breast-pocket/664024/27 "2013-07-23T23:32:25Z")
_Half a league, Half a league, Half a league onward. With a hey nonnie nonnie and a hot-cha-cha._ ---
**Author:** ![Algernon-Graham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@Algernon-Graham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algernon-Graham)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2014, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leather-strap-from-lapel-to-breast-pocket/664024/28 "2014-03-03T12:38:50Z")
The item in question is a pocket watch strap, known as an Albert Strap. It can be clearly seen in use during Jeeves & Wooster series 1 episode 1 when Berty Wooster is arranging a rendezvous with Honoria Glossop. Similar straps are available on ebay for about a Tenner. Pip Pip! Algy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leather-strap-from-lapel-to-breast-pocket/664024.md?page=1)