I took a wander round Grafton St last week in a vain attempt to pick up some new clothes for the weekend. Not that I had any plans that went further than ‘drink a lot and laugh at tourists’ you understand. Unfortunately I could find no fellow Dubliners with which to practise the old point and laugh technique and ended up wandering aimlessly through the shopping ‘mecca’ of the southside. Holy mother of god, but it looks like I’m not going to be buying any clothes until at least October. EVERYWHERE the summer season goods were garish displays from the 80’s and not the good 80’s stuff. I’m talking of a 1987-home-perm-blue-eyeshadow-batwing-sleeves nightmare.

There were puffball skirts and pink and green and yellow tank tops. There were dungarees and (inglorious) knickerbockers. Patterned tights and dodgy flared skirts, but worst of all…

LYCRA KNEE LENGTH LEGGINGS that Peg Bundy would be proud to wear. The samples I spotted were mostly in black, but one fetching pair had lace on the leg cuffs and another pair were LEOPARD PRINT. Already I can see those girls -the ones who think they look good in belly tops and velour sweat pants emblazoned with ‘Sexy’ across the arse- squeezing themselves into these insults to the female form.

I’ll be sticking to my jeans this season.