2002-11-18 at 5:20 p.m.

"Hey, Salter".

"What?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

Salter is one of my Chamber Choir buddies/partners in beer-fuelled mayhem. As his name suggests, he's a real salt-of-the-earth, feet on the ground, bloke's bloke kinda guy.

It's for that reason, I think, that he and I tend to get on well.

We, and the rest of the Chamber Choir, were sitting in our choir director's living room and listening to the finished CDs we'd recorded during our tour through England. Salter had found a copy of a women's magazine, and was idly flicking through it. He'd just reached a fashion spread- 'This Season's Eight Billion Essential Items' or something like that.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure. What?"

"Do guys actually notice the clothes a woman wears?"

He didn't hesitate.

"Nope. Never."

"Never? You've never appreciated a woman's dress sense?"

"Never".

So, there you have it, ladies. There's no point dressing up to impress a man- It's all a waste of time. Throw out your copies of Cleo and Vogue, take off those tight, binding outfits, and for God's sake stop wearing those portable torture chambers that pass as 'high heels'. I want to see every woman in the world decked out in trakky-daks and moccasins by the end of 2003.

At least stop wearing those horrible ultra-ultra-ultra-ultra low pants. There's only so many times I can be forced to look at the pubic bones of pre-pubescent girls before my gag reflex kicks in.

Britney Spears has a lot to answer for.