Years ago a friend's loo had a sign up saying "Gentlemen, please adjust your dress before leaving. Those of you not wearing dresses please fasten your flies." And it never failed to amuse me.
We have been here numerous times about outward displays of female underwear. Not the inadvertent slippage or breach when sitting/bending, but the seeming deliberate intention to have a three inch gap between thong and low-cut trouser on display whilst ascending Europe's busiest escalator...
On the whole, women seem to have got over this, thankfully. Now, it's the men. Last night on the Tube I was grateful when some young man came and stood near me thus blocking the sight of the two rather sad, youngish, girlfriendless men stuffing McDonalds inelegantly into their gobs, chewing with their mouths open and dribbling the surplus down their faded t-shirts (in fairness they did take their redundant packaging with them as they got off the same station as us).
I didn't even mind that this young man was canoodling his girlfriend, because it was almost 11 pm on a Saturday night and only the most churlish would object to canoodling at such a time. What did disturb me was that every time he leant into her, the side of his shirt rode up, revealing an inch of pale puppy-fatted midriff, and grossly, a thick waistband declaring 'Next Underwear'. I just had this awful thought process involving launderettes.
Someone I know was up in court the other day. Preceding him was some lad 'with jeans round his knees and underpants up to his armpits'. Made me laugh.
I still recall several years ago being stuck walking behind some gangly lad whose jeans were so far down his bum he could barely walk. It was annoying because on a narrow pathway it slowed us down. And I just failed to see the point. a) it's highly impractical but b) it looks retarded - I can't imagine being a teenage girl and saying "I really fancy that lad he wears his jeans round his knees and looks gormless". In fact, why is it that so many young men look so unattractively gormless? Is it the drugs, d'you think?
But the best/worst male underpant story occurred some weeks ago when we away. In just about the same spot, Episode 1 on Friday night, Episode 2 on Saturday afternoon.
Episode 1 saw a small group of young men, students or similar. All of them had the obligatory knicker elastic showing. One of them had two inches of knickers on display, clearly belonging to a pair of paisley Y-Fronts of the sort that grandmas bought for small boys in the 70s. Episode 2 saw several yards of white knickers on display above a pair of jeans practically round his ankles. At least, they had been white when he had put them, perhaps several days previously. Which just proves that underwear should always be worn, at least in public, underneath outerwear.
