Robbin’ Hoodie

I had to laugh at the story of a Wiltshire vicar mistaken for a thief nicking lead from his church’s roof. The reason for the misidentification, occurring in the early hours of the morning, was his risible habit of wearing a hoodie and a baseball cap. And he a man of 51 years tae.

The mix-up, in which officers nearly apprehended him, served him right. This column has campaigned long and hard against both the hoodie and the baseball cap, the former for being sinister and medieval, the latter for its associations with stupidity.

This man of the cloth millinery was clearly trying to show that he was down with the kids, usually a sign that there’s something up with you. Unbelievably, I have some inadvertent experience of this phenomenon. Being in the habit of wearing a check shirt, and also sporting a beard, I think I was mistaken for an aspiring “hipster” for some years.

I don’t know if hipsters are still a thing, but I do believe they were rather middle-class and respectable. Certainly, no one ever stopped me when I was out nicking lead from church roofs.