According to the lateral flow my girl has still got ‘The Rage’. Weird, because it is ten days later. I take another look at the bad line. It is really faint, I suppose she can be unchained from the spare room.

From the other side the cell door, I can hear sporadic, “ohmygods” as she joyscrolls through the My Theresa sale. It’s a shame I’ve got to let her out really. I’ve been getting a lot of things done during my solitude. I sat through three hours of PlayStation 4 updates and I cancelled my bank card because some criminal mastermind had been rinsing my digits at Debenhams of all places.

“Are you 100% certain you didn’t spend £133.99 at Debenhams?” quizzed the bank-bot.

“Baby please, what even is Debenhams?” I almost (but didn’t actually) say.

During my alone time I learned it’s really hard to thumb through Instagram and follow a subtitled Norwegian thriller at the same time. I spent too much time wondering whether there’s a market for fish stuffing  — you know, like Paxo for cod. And (not for the first time) I tried and failed to memorise all the lyrics to Eric B and Rakim’s Follow the Leader; sad really, as I’ve always felt Rakim never quite captured the Midlands’ intonation the track obviously demands.

I also dropped a twoer on a Kapital fleece from the Kafka pre-sale. I haven’t got round to telling my girl about this last one yet.

I know what’ll happen when she sees my fleece. She’ll fall in love with the softness and the style and declare, “maybe it can be a family fleece?”

A family fleece. A family sweater. A family scarf. I’ve heard this idea many times before. Our family is just the two of us, so ‘family fleece’ basically means, she wants to be able to wear it, without asking, whenever she wants. In the case of my new Kapital fleece, that’s simply not going to fly.

The fundamental problem with the ‘family piece’ concept is that she ruins things and I do not. We can go out together for the day, go to the exact same places, do the exact same things and she will return home with marks on her and I won’t.

If there’s spilt tea she’ll find a way to get her elbow in it. If there’s a bush jutting out into the pavement she’ll plough-in face first. She has a big furry Aries jumper that she actually managed to set on fire while making a cup of tea. She is not an individual you want to trust with a new piece of Japanese casual wear.

A difficult conversation awaits.

Still if that’s the biggest problem I have at this time of year, I’m probably doing alright. I hope you are too. To anyone who has ever enjoyed this site, given me a like or dropped me a line, I appreciate it more than you know. I wish you all an appropriately debonair Christmas and New Year.

Peace on earth, good will to all menswear.

x

Hat, scarf, top: Kapital
Vest: Engineered Garments
Trousers: Needles
Shoes: Yuketen