How to become a pillock of society

While the world was watching the face of Amanda Knox in the final moments of her appeal in the desperately sad case of the murder of Meredith Kercher, I was like a cat fascinated by a piece of string, because the television pictures would from time to time pan across the court to reveal the attire of the Italian lawyers.

I know that in dignified situations one's dress must match the occasion, but why were the lawyers wearing curtain tassels sticking out of their arms?

What we wear defines us, as I found out recently when I was subjected to a humiliating (but interesting) experience in a clothes store in Norwich.

We are now about to enter a new era, if the doom-laden views expressed in a recent newspaper are to be believed. Last week an article in The Times reported the predictions of one investment bank that virtually all the 10,000 or so firms of high street solicitors will close down because they will either be pushed out of business or absorbed into larger firms or 'Tesco law' once alternative business structures go live.

High street solicitors will need to find survival techniques in the brave new world of ABS. And the first thing we will need to do is get ourselves noticed.

It does not take much to assume an air of authority. Two men meet in the street. One has shoulder epaulettes and the other (a solicitor) does not. The man with the epaulettes is instantly more noticeable, so the solicitor goes to his local epaulette shop and the following day strolls down the high street with brand new epaulettes. To his chagrin, coming the other way is a woman with a blue blazer and the golden chevrons of an airline pilot on her sleeve. Once again the solicitor is trumped, so that evening he pays a visit to his chevron shop. Proudly he displays his chevrons the following day but he is met by the airline pilot this time wearing a braided peaked cap. At this point the solicitor goes to his local army surplus store and emerges with a peaked cap encrusted with scrambled egg, epaulettes, golden braid and as many medals as he can squeeze onto his chest. This time passers by look on him in pity and press low denomination coins into his hand with a 'god bless you sir for winning the war for us, sir'.

Clothes show

Cut to Marks and Spencer in Norwich. I had got myself into one of those situations I wished I had managed to avoid. I was talking a little law on BBC Radio Norfolk when we were joined by a fashion expert who had come to discuss autumn clothes for women and men. Nowadays you do not put on a dinner jacket to appear on the radio, so I had shown up in jeans. The presenter and fashion expert then turned on me and announced to the world (or at least to the local radio listeners) that they would take me to the local shops to give me a makeover.

A few weeks later I found myself on the radio being described as having the John Major look as I was so grey that I would be invisible to almost everyone who passed me in the street. It was all apparently down to vibration and wavelength and grey was not a good wavelength to transmit.