It's not funny and it's not clever.

I just went to collect my 10 year old from a birthday party and received the shock of my life. I like to think of myself as ready for most things at most times. A kind of Action Man. Well, I've got the height and the haircut anyway.

I wasn't ready for this and it shocked me so much that I could only glare open mouthed at the chap as he proceded to humiliate and embarass himself quite publicly.

I need to give you some background here; I am a firm believer in the benefits of a sarong. I have a drawer full of them and I wear one every night. They are one of the greatest assets to men's clothing ever invented, really. I wait with baited breath for the time when they become "en vogue" here in the UK. When that time comes I'll be everywhere in a sarong. I'll be out gigging in a sarong. I'll have to make sure the bottom of it doesn't get caught in my bass drum pedal but these things can be worked on and I am prepared for that work. On top of all that I call it a "su - rong", not a "serr rong".

But, and I mean it strongly, there are few sights that look worse than a Sudda in a sarong, even in Sri Lanka. When I see those tourists on the beach in their sarong, I genuinely find it unpleasant. There are so many ways for tourists to show their appreciation of the beauty of Sri Lanka, but wearing a sarong should be outlawed. It just doesn't look right. David Beckham may almost get away with it when he is going out for dinner in the south of France but you, Mr Average from average suburbia just outside London, are not David Beckham. And he didn't really get away with it anyhow.

You've guessed it by now. It was a regular English geezer, there to collect a child, wearing a sarong. That is to say the Father was wearing one, not the child. With those sandal type things, the ones made by Merell and Nike and the like. Sandals with air in their soles and made for action, like Jesus creepers brought up to date. They look good with shorts whilst climbing, or in Yala, but NOT with a sarong.

I clocked him immediately. Our eyes met. He had a split second's look of fear in his eye. He knew that I knew that he felt a prat. I knew that he knew that I knew it and I knew he was scared of, but also wanted me to mention it. I didn't. I let him suffer. I knew that he had been to Sri Lanka or Goa or Finland and he had bought one, I knew he had probably had many arguments with himself about whether to wear it in public. I knew that a tiny, miniscule part of me was full of admiration for his blatant disregard of all things fashionable. Most of all I knew his sarong was one of those House of Fashion nasties, not one of Barbara Sansoni's finest.

Pillock!

In Teddington of all places.

Pah!