- The Observer, Sunday September 10 2006
Why are flashy, exotic canes being strutted upon sleepy Norfolk beach fronts, or carried into playgrounds in Cheshire by people who was only five (mere 'pimpfants') when Ali G first began enquiring 'Is it because I is black?' in 1998? What should one make of it when teens walk along shire streets with the aid of dapper and decorated walking sticks?
A surge in the sale and self-decoration of canes - aka 'kanz' and 'pimp canes' - is under way nationwide, and youth are having a lot of fun with it. They know (probably) that the term 'pimp cane' blurs and melds two meanings; that such things have been used for keeping prostitutes in line ('Don't holler at your ho for making no dough, just check that trick with your big pimp stick'), but that 'pimp cane' also means simply any cane which has been embellished, blinged up, tricked out, personalised.
A 14-year-old walking into an off-licence with a leopard-skin-covered cane with beads and a silver handle has probably received a few 'mad props' (appreciative 'big ups') on the way there, but also finds he is more likely to be sold a bottle of vodka. Meanwhile, guitarists in their sixties have recently taken to brandishing voodooed-up canes in public and in promo photos - something done possibly as a way of coping with (rumoured) arthritis.
As the population ages, canes may shortly prove to be the greatest sartorial and conversational link between old and young. With the aid of a 'pimped out' stick, an elder could appear incredibly hip while actually in incredible pain from the fitting of a new hip, while the young could find kudos and company from gathering and sashaying outside shops which sell old gents' walking sticks rather than fast food.
