Men in shorts - I wish they wouldn't

It's usually excruciating to look at. A man in shorts, especially an older man who should know better.

I admit the bare legs of some young men, if tanned and shapely and not too muscular, can look OK - especially on a beach or by a swimming pool. I'll allow that. But sinews, and a thick covering of hair, put me right off, whatever the context. And as for thin, spindly legs and knobbly knees, especially on older men...no, let's not even get started on that. Thrust it all from the mind.

Put shortly, I think men's legs are ugly, and need to be kept covered up whether the man is young or old.

This is only my personal opinion of course, and I don't expect more than faint clapping and muted cheers from some in the back rows. But really, I can't be the only woman in the world who deplores the modern male habit of wearing shorts whenever possible.

Let's look into it. Why is wearing a pair of shapeless shorts so attractive to the male mind?

It can't be a simple quest for style. Because a lot of men like to wear socks with their shorts. I suppose white socks can look all right with tennis whites on Centre Court. But dark socks with dark shorts and town shoes? No! And socks worn with open sandals? No, no, no... What are these blokes thinking of?

Is it considered sexy? Meaning, 'This is just a sample. You can see the rest soon enough, if you let me chat you up.' I can offer the slim evidence of one occasion, while on holiday recently, of a man in shorts who said 'hello, darling' to me. It was on the beach at Kessingland, an old codger with his grandsons. It was a friendly greeting, but the shorts were a barrier to further conversation.

I recall an era when boys would be ashamed to wear short trousers and yearned to get out of them and into 'proper' long trousers - the switch from short to long indicating that boyhood had been left behind, and that the compliant little child was now a serious proposition in all respects.

Two or three decades back, very few men would be seen dead in shorts. It was a thing for mad opal miners in Australia; or heat-crazy officers with names like Carruthers, fighting mosquitoes and the Japanese in the jungles of Burma - khaki shorts and pith helmets being the stock image of the British soldier in the tropics. An image that was too easily lampooned.

But around the year 2000, I began to notice that postmen were wearing shorts a lot. It seemed to be official. It looked a little odd at first, especially as it wasn't just a summer thing: the posties were wearing shorts all year round. But then builders wore shorts too. And soon a lot more tradesmen did, so much so that shorts became normal wear for most younger men, most of the year. Older men followed suit, unwisely in some cases. Maybe there was a gain in street cred, if you were a man and you wore a trendy pair of shorts?

I suppose that with so many overweight women, young and old, squeezing their bloated bodies into unsuitable, badly-made clothes, and not caring how they looked, the men made a collective decision to do much the same. Even if by ordinary standards the sight of so many withered tree trunks would be an offence to the eye.

I hanker back to a time when men aspired to dress like Cary Grant, when being well-dressed meant a tailored suit with a sharp crease in the trousers, an expensive shirt with discreet cufflinks, a quiet but subtly distinctive tie secured with a tie pin, a crisp handkerchief in the breast pocket, and well-polished shoes, probably brogues. And of course a hat, a fedora perhaps.

It makes me think of my Uncle Wilf, and how he liked to dress all his life.

Or James Bond in evening clothing, ready for play in the casino.

Sigh.