Sock in it

Made my semi-annual visit to M & S for socks and stuff at the weekend, and had my semi-annual moan to the poor sap who served me. I buy with increasing resentment as I get older, because it's about 10 years since they made a decent sock. Whenever I hear or read about their financial troubles, I put it down to this one thing, but I'm a voice in the wilderness.

Lycra. Bollocks to it.

Since they started putting 1% elastane into their socks, they've been crap. They don't last as long, and they become uncomfortable after you've been wearing them for a few hours.

And then there's the colour problem. In the garish 80s, you used to be able to buy socks in many shades, from pastels to dayglo. I had a bit of a fetish, where I'd buy, say, a red tee shirt, and a matching pair of red socks. Or yellow and yellow. But regardless of my fetish, if I had a choice, I would never wear navy blue, grey, and the other dull colours (black excepted, for certain occasions). I would always buy something brighter, a red, or green, purple or yellow.

Problem is, everyone else puts Lycra in as well, and everyone else makes horrible colours. But worse, everyone else makes socks that don't fit properly too. Plus there are some shops I just won't go in.

It used to be that I'd regularly walk into M & S to browse, just because they did a reasonable range of good value t shirts and stuff, well made, and you could get comfortable cotton rich socks in a variety of colours. Naturally, you'd see things and buy them just because you happened to be there. But now I only go in when I'm desperate and barely bother to browse, because the clothes are ridiculously overpriced and usually horrible to look at, and the socks are rubbish.

There, in a nutshell, is your problem, Mr Marks and Mr Spencer.