Shading It

Style, so I'm led to believe, is something you either have or don't. I'm firmly in the latter camp - I doubt even the best designer could put me in an outfit that would make me look good. Instead, I just stick to wearing black 501s and black Converse whenever possible, dreading the oncoming day I'll be too old to get away with it.

One area I've particularly struggled with in the past is sunglasses. I don't know if it's the shape of my head, the size of my eyes or my big nose, but something always guarantees that when I put on a pair of shades, I look like a complete div. But they're handy to have when the weather is bright and sunny, like now, as spending all your time outdoors squinting gets a bit painful after a while.

However, I think I may recently have solved my eye-related sartorial problem. Whilst back in my hometown last month, my good lady and I passed a shop that had just opened, selling vintage clothes. A while ago, I would have made a joke that a place selling clothes from the 1960s in Whitehaven would just be keeping up with current trends in the town. But not now, oh no. In a curious twist, the place also turned out to be run by somebody I went to school with, which made me feel (as a lot of things do these days) a bit old - to think people my age are now running small businesses. Clearly she paid a lot more attention during our Business Studies 'A' level classes.

Inside, I found a pair of shades that actually looked half decent on me - and for only £4! I was half considering spunking a huge amount on some Ray Bans, so this was a much more satisfactory outcome.

As a result, I now no longer fear the sun as I used to and as an added bonus, I reckon they make me look a little bit like Don Draper.

Cool Fucker

That's in the same way the planet Jupiter looks a little like a bag of spanners.