Opening Lines: Slacks... represent the beginning of the end of summer

You'll notice it as you go into the big clothes shops from now on: signs done in blackboard chalk-style, and a smell of thousands of sensible shoes, which are Fabrique en Vietnam or Laos or Myanmar. (Wherever labour laws are most lax).

In displays festooned with ‘special offer’ signs, forlorn child mannequins carry schoolbags, uncertain about what is happening next, as they take their first steps without their mammequins. One of the signs says ‘Slacks!’

Slacks: if ever there was a word that didn’t deserve an exclamation mark, it’s slacks. It represents the beginning of the end of summer.