It’s time to say adieu to the tie

When’s the last time you wore a tie? Was it yesterday? Are you wearing one now? Somehow I doubt it. After all, why should you, sitting there in your home office or spare bedroom, or sitting room? 

Of course there was a time, if you’re a male reader, that you would have worn one every day to work. But ties are rapidly disappearing. Where once half-Windsors wider than 747s straddled the necks of pontificating ex-footballers on Match of the Day, open shirts now rule the roost. When you see a politician out and about on the television, his tie is gone, his sleeves are rolled up – like a vet about to perform a highly intimate procedure – and he’s even jacket-less. In fact it’s almost reached the stage where a politician only wears a tie when he’s about to deliver some seriously bad news. 

And it’s gone further: should you be fortunate enough to be hoping to move house, even estate agents have stopped wearing ties.