If a bloke can wear stockings and suspenders in a stable yard why can’t I?

We had gone to visit a friend at a stable yard on a country estate on a crisp autumn Sunday. I was going to help his daughter with a pony they weren’t sure about. The builder boyfriend and I drove up a winding driveway past an elegant stately home to an antique stable yard from a bygone era where our friend was waiting with his daughter and their pretty black cob tied to the wall.

Hens clucked from a nearby coop, kids came and went in wellies and warm jumpers, for there was a chill in the air. A young girl tacked up a smart, dapple-grey mount. Clip clop clip clop went the horses.

And then a man in black stockings and suspenders walked into the yard. When I say that, I don’t mean he was wearing black stockings and a suspender belt under his outfit, I mean that was his outfit. Black stockings and a suspender belt, skin-tight, very brief denim shorts like underpants, and a tight T-shirt. He was a big man, and his meagre outfit placed us all in a predicament.

We froze. We instinctively knew that extreme danger lurked for any one of us who adopted the wrong expression. It was as if there were snipers in the bushes and the first person to twitch would have their brains blown out, as in the Korean television drama Squid Game, which, if you haven’t seen, you must.

This chap’s hair was a spiky punk do with bright red, orange and green streaks, like a rainbow. He was accompanied by a girl leading a horse and a male friend who was conventionally dressed although he too bore a rainbow, on his jumper. I knew the rainbow was linked to That Acronym.