I loathe shopping for clothes, and I despise the temperature hovering around the 36ºC mark. Combine the two, though, and it’s blissful. Modern air conditioning in popular high street men’s stores – Top Man, Next, H&M, Gap – make the process of trying on a series of ill-fitting short-sleeved shirts almost pleasurable. Emerging from the store onto the blistering heat of Oxford Street only makes you want to dive back in and try on a few more. My credit card, and indeed my girlfriend, are still reeling from the shock of this spending spree. Something had to be done, though. I’ve been teased recently for wearing the same outfit for several days in a row – this isn’t because I’m a filthy unwashed oik, it’s just that all my clothes look the same. I’ve taken Erik Satie’s principle of owning 12 identical velvet suits and wearing them in strict rotation, and just applied it to black shirts, blue jeans and Converse shoes. Yesterday I bought yet more black shirts, blue jeans and Converse shoes, but at least I can say “they’re new, you bastards” when next teased.

Talc. You don’t see much talc around, these days, do you. I don’t loiter in sports changing rooms as much as I used to, which wasn’t very much, admittedly, but I do remember huge clouds of talc billowing from the underarms of recently cricketing, and even more recently showered men. Gold-chained, open-necked-shirted blokes would stride into the bar, smiling, nodding gently, exuding an aura of having been thoroughly and professionally talced, their pubic hair probably still gently highlighted with flecks of white powder. My own experience of talc from my late teenage years is that you put it on, get dressed, perspire slightly, the perspiration combines with the talc to coat you in a thin layer of dough, which then seals up all your pores and within 24 hours causes a number of revolting pustules to break out. Perhaps that’s why you don’t see much talc around, these days.

EDIT: Oh, and I saw this in Next:

Which made me laugh, but it wouldn’t have made me laugh without the box, which suggests that you should just leave the dog in the box and put the box in your back windscreen, in the hope that the “occupants of the vehicle behind you” can read the text thereon.