Where does Superman put his socks?

Another week, another catchphrase. Last week’s key word was ‘ altercation’. After the Ukip MeP Steven Woolfe had been pictured spreadeagled over the floor in Strasbourg, a succession of increasingly bullish Ukip spokesmen appeared on TV to speak of ‘an altercation’.

Altercation this, altercation that: it’s one of those words, like ‘alight’, ‘vehicle’, ‘complainant’ and ‘residence’ that people rarely use in everyday speech, but reserve for those moments when they are feeling defensive, or wanting to be thought of as adult.

over the course of the next two or three days, Ukippers kept using the word ‘altercation’ with such gay abandon that it was almost as though they imagined an altercation to be another form of leisure break, like a vacation or a staycation.

But that was last week. this week, we have been landed with the threeword phrase: ‘locker-room talk’. In his second presidential debate, Donald trump couldn’t stop using it, playing down his secretly recorded boasts about molesting women.

‘this was locker-room talk. I’m not proud of it. I apologise to my family. I apologise to the American people. Certainly I’m not proud of it. But this is locker-room talk . . . Yes, I’m very embarrassed by it. I hate it. But it’s locker-room talk, and it’s one of those things . . . It was locker-room talk, as I told you. that was locker-room talk. I’m not proud of it.’ And so on.

BY WrItIng it off as ‘locker-room talk’, he was hoping to suggest that this was normal everyday banter between men, and thus meant nothing at all.

Is this really locker-room talk? I am no expert. the time I have spent in locker rooms has been very limited, as I am by nature un-sporty. I once had a school report that claimed, not unfairly, that the only effort I ever put into sport was in getting out of it.

But every now and then, I have had to change into or out of my swimming trunks at a public pool, and so have been forced to pay a visit to a communal male changing room, or, as Mr trump would call it, a ‘locker room’.

Perhaps things are different in America, but here in Britain, men will do anything to avoid lockerroom conversation. Instead, an embarrassed hush is the order of the day and the only noise you will ever hear in a locker room is the sudden whoosh of a hand-dryer, the swing and bang of a door or the occasional flip-flap of wet feet on tiles.

the prevailing mood is one of unease. For most men, the aim on entering a locker room is to get out again as quickly as possible. My preferred technique is simple: i) nip into the most distant corner of the room, as far away from anyone else as you can possibly get. ii) Change your clothes with the speed of an olympic Speed-Changing champion. Ideally, pull off your socks, trousers and pants all together in the same movement. iii) replace them with swimming trunks before anyone has noticed what you are up to and . . . iv) exit without looking left or right.

the master of this technique is, of course, Clark Kent, who is somehow able to step into the confines of a public telephone box, twirl around extremely rapidly three or four times and then emerge fully clad in a freshly laundered Superman onesie without anyone noticing. What does Mr Kent do with his discarded socks, pants, shirt, spectacles, suit and tie? I have watched him perform his quickchange act on screen countless times, but he never seems to leave a pile of his old clothes scrumpled up on the floor of the telephone box.

It’s possible, I suppose, that Superman is partly British, which would explain why he feels so embarrassed about undressing in public. this may suggest that he doesn’t actually remove his office clothes, preferring to put on his glamorous personalised onesie over them.

on the other hand, if this were true, then the outline of his old clothes would create a lumpy impression beneath his skintight onesie, as well as causing him a good deal of discomfort on his energetic planet-saving missions.

But it is clear that Superman never shares his changing-room with anyone, and thus avoids the danger of trump-style lockerroom conversation.

the only locker-room conversation I ever hear is when two men enter the room together and then feel obliged to carry on with the chat they were having as they came in, just to prove how unembarrassed they are by their new, more intimate, circumstances.

they never talk about women. they may talk about the weather, or scheduling that business meeting, or last night’s television, or what Chris said that Steve said that graham said about Dave. And — who knows? — if they are feeling really uninhibited, they might even talk about Donald trump.