Fashion statements

I'm no follower of fashion - I'm very much a jeans-and-tee-shirt person - but I know when to draw the line and, more tellingly, I can see when others have crossed it; the line I'm referring to is the misguided wearing of sportswear.

We've all seen them; mostly older people, beyond the age of a reasonable degree of sporting success, carrying maybe a little more than their punching weight, yet dressed head-to-toe in basketball kit. You try not to laugh - or to look, even - but you can't help it, any more than you would were they to be wearing an A-board declaring themselves to be "Twit of the Century". They might as well do just that, as there's nothing more obviously misplaced than your dad dressed like your favourite sport star. What are they saying, both to us and about themselves? "No, put away your autograph book, sonny - that's not the real Michael Jordan. It's my uncle Frank."

It seems a purely male preoccupation to cling onto that vim and vigour of youth as expressed through sporting excellence. I can't remember seeing large, bingo-winged women dressed up like Lucinda Green (or Prior-Palmer, as she was in her heyday) with "Beagle Bay" in large letters across their shoulders and carrying a crop. Surely, that's something nobody should have to see.

No, I personally draw the line at long shorts and sandals in the summer, and even then I'm aware that I'm rather overweight and that my varicose veins are on show. I won't go out pretending to be David Beckham any more than my Mum might go out to an orchestral concert dressed like Dame Kiri Te Kanawa. It would fool nobody, not least me.