It’s the summer of the topless man – and there’s nothing we can do to stop it

Topless men. What does that mean, then? I was opposite one on the tube the other day, heading north from Finsbury Park, and I just couldn’t stop -staring.

In terms of sheer comfort, I was quite jealous. There was me, sweating in my shirt and suit trousers, and there was him, open to the air in shorts and nothing else. He was sweating too, of course. As I watched, a rivulet of the stuff ran from his neck and through the thicket of his chest to hang as a globule from a thatch of hair above his right nipple. Frankly, that globule made me anxious. Any moment, I knew, our train would burst into the overland sunshine of Arnos Grove and I feared it might function as a lens, perhaps even setting him alight.

Men are stripping off. There’s no point in denying it, because it is definitely happening. Nor, really, even decrying it.