I FULLY appreciate this will be difficult for many of you to comprehend, but being a cricket fan has its downsides. Feeling obliged to stay up until daft o’clock to watch England pretend to play that particular game in Australia recently is one of them.

Outstripping even that, however, is the fact that going to major matches always seems to necessitate sitting in close proximity to nuns, convicts and Egyptian strongmen. Cricket is basically obsessed with fancy dress to an unfathomable degree. I remember a group of heavy-drinking Smurfs at one game ultimately getting told by a bunch of people who’d obviously come dressed as riot police that they were being a smurfing nuisance and, if they didn’t behave, they’d be spending a night in the smurfing cells.

This worrying fixation with fancy dress is, unfortunately, not confined to cricket. It is replicated across society at a national level. I’ve nothing against it in principle; some of my best friends wear fancy dress, although I wish they wouldn’t do it for meetings with Human Resources. But, as has been proved once again this week, it can lead people into completely avoidable hot water.

It’s probably fair to say Cannock Chase MP Aidan Burley has had better press than he’s had in recent days. As a public figure, organising a Nazi-themed stag do for your mate and deciding nothing says friendship like a Waffen SS uniform is about as wise as asking Russell Brand to keep an eye on your missus. Rumour has it that Mr Burley originally planned to get the groom-to-be a Manchester United shirt instead, but felt that would be too embarrassing for all concerned if the tabloids got hold of it.

It’s just the latest in a stream of fancy-dress controversies, which is surely not what this particular sartorial escapade was ever intended to achieve, and I fear for how this is making us look.

We’ve had a top footballer – well, a Manchester United player anyway; I’ll stop this now – turning up to a bash resembling a suicide bomber. We’ve had supermarket chains flogging “mental patient” and “psycho ward” costumes, and students deciding the best thing to get this party started is to dress up as the World Trade Center.

On the last one, even disregarding the sheer bad taste, it’s concerning that fancy dress has now got so out of control that you can walk the streets as a landmark. Coney Street is hard enough to get down on a Saturday afternoon, what with half the female population of Newcastle using it, without having to barge past revellers wearing the Taj Mahal or the Petronas Towers.

Maybe it’s my age or the scars from when I was working on the bars and had to spend a night behind the Carling Premier tap as Batman, but I can’t see the attraction. It seems to me that fancy dress adds significant preparation time and is wholly impractical for a serious night of being refused entry to nightspots.

You have to consider other people as well. Returning to its popularity with cricket crowds, I know for a fact that a gang of lads pretending to be The Village People and doing out-of-sync renditions of In The Navy during Test matches has completely spoilt other supporters’ enjoyment of missing half a day’s play while queuing for the beer tent.

So, is regulation the answer? Possibly, but the risk is that you will simply drive fancy dress underground. Dealing with troublesome groups having a night on the tiles in Star Trek uniforms is enough of a drain on police time as it is, without it going rogue.

However, a lighter-touch approach may be for parts of city-centres to be declared fancy-dress exclusion zones, with officers having the power of arrest should offenders ignore friendly advice to change into something more sensible.

Obviously, there is a danger that this will then pave the way for authorities to take a more draconian approach to apparel, such as banning tan shoes with grey suits, but I’m sure the public consultation period will sort this out.

I’ll look into the whole issue in more depth once I’ve fixed what I’m wearing for The Press’ monthly Dress Like Characters From Hawaii Five-O Day, first prize being two tickets to the Kiev Real Ale and Baton Charges Festival.