Ideal gusset scenario, Teesdale Mercury

Ideal gusset scenario

Apr 1, 2008

ARRIVING incognito as he did, few people recognised Jeremy Paxman in Barnard Castle recently,  making the most of the end of the fishing season.  Never one to shy from controversy, he has suggested that M and S underpants do not offer enough ‘support'.  In their structure, that is, not their attitude to charities.

This call to arms, about legs, has been heeded by a few in the dale, but he has not received the support he might expect for his views.  He came into Mercury HQ to ask for help in assessing local opinion and  I was obviously the man to guide him.

I offered to introduce him to the great and good of our part of the world and see how the underpants debate grabbed them. Jeremy (he and I are now on Christian name terms) slid into the front seat of my brown Austin Allegro de luxe saloon and asked where we were going first. 

In no time at all we were on the gravelled driveway of Handgrenade Hall, ancestral home of the Ring-Bindings. Lady Philadelphia, widow of the renowned Brigadier Sir Alistair, met us with glee.

"Ah, Mr Paxman," she boomed. "I've been looking forward to meeting you. I want you to know that my late husband was particularly fond of your sage and onion ready mix. I listen to you on the Today programme every morning." Impressed, Jezza pressed on. He asked about the late great Brigadier's attitude towards undergarments. Lady P, flattered by the attention of a megastar, was only too pleased to let him know.  

"Daddy would only wear one thing. His father before him, the General, captured some French colours at the Somme, which was surprising, since he was supposed to be fighting the Germans, but no matter. As a statement of his opinion on Anglo-French relations my father-in-law had the flag run up into a pair of very ample-sized combinations, which he wore every day until his demise. In fact, on one day of the week he stayed in to facilitate their being washed. Upon his death and shortly after our marriage, Alistair, my dear, heroic husband continued the family tradition. I well remember the first day on which he wore them.  He strode, magnificent, into the bedchamber, clad in his Pater's underwear and carrying a cavalry sword. I swooned.  He was Romeo to my Juliet; and now I am Dido to his Aeneas.  But he is gone to the great officers' mess above. Unfortunately, we have no sons to continue the glorious tradition and our daughter is being a bit damn peculiar about ‘Daddy's cast-offs' as she so vulgarly puts it. I have thus decided that the pants will be hung next to the regimental colours in the parish church, on the end of a suitably grand lance. There they will become splendidly threadbare, moving gently in the breeze above the family crypt, serving as an uplifting reminder to the peasantry of the importance of national pride in their betters."

Jeremy blinked. He asked Lady P if she thought the family underwear could give M and S some guidance in their design of future garments. She replied that since most young men nowadays were either thugs or pansies, a spell in the army with woollen pants would do ‘em the power of good.

Undaunted, I drove Jezza on to meet Ron Mangle, 72, manager of promotion-challenging Real Glaxo FC at the 138,000-seater Stadium of Magnificence in Eggleston. Strolling in from the training ground in casual attire, Big Ron hung up his bull whip (‘my little persuader' as he termed it), put his wellington boot-shod feet on his desk and gave us his views.

"When yer out there on the park taking each game as it comes on a daily basis at the football club, it pays ter leave nowt ter chance. The younger members of the squad can sometimes get a bit distracted by chasing the lasses after training, so I insist that when they sign fer the football club as they get sewn up into permanent, asbestos-lined, maximum support pants with a Yale lock. I keeps the key, like, until the end of the season or till they're injured on a permanent basis or sold.  I know they get a bit agitated, but it don't arf make 'em concentrate. As far as meself and the ongoing pant situation is concerned, I favour pink silk thongs, but don't tell the lads; they might find it a bit hard to understand.  Yer see, football's a funny old game of two 'arves and it can be a bit insecure, like, so I'm practising for an alternative career in case anything goes wrong, geddit? I quite fancy 'aving a bash at being a neo-Romantic rhyming poet and so far as I can mek out, they didn't go a bundle on tight underwear."

On the way to the station, Jeremy looked a little bemused.  He confessed that he was no nearer to finding the ideal gusset scenario.  I tried to reassure him by saying that if he thought the two locals he had met were a bit odd, he'd seen nothing.  I advised him to try going to the cattle mart next time, with a film crew in tow.  I felt sure that most Teesdale livestock farmers would be utterly delighted to go live nationwide with a candid review of what covered their bottoms. Although Jez said he would bear it in mind, I think I may have failed to convince him.

First published in the Mercury, Wednesday, March 26