I AM, as they say, getting on a bit and despair at the way the niceties of life (good manners, being nicely dressed etc) are rapidly being eroded away.

Opening doors for ladies, standing up on a crowded bus to offer your seat, touching your hat in greeting are as likely to be met with a torrent of abuse as a thank you.

Another part of those niceties is that you always wear a tie when wearing a suit.

There was a photograph of football manager Sam Allardyce getting out of his car and en-route to be interviewed for the manager’s job of the England football team.

Without being overly surprised, I saw he wasn’t wearing a tie. Just where did this ludicrous looking scruffy fashion come from?

An open-necked shirt is fine when the shirt-collar is turned-down neatly over the collar of a blazer but not, as they are worn today, under suit jacket collars looking, for all the world, as though the wearer was in such a hurry leaving the house he forgot to put a tie on.

This slovenly habit is in a way a subliminal way of telling the person doing the interviewing and the audience: “You’re not of any real importance so I’ll not put a tie on.”

There are no ifs, no buts. If you’re wearing a suit you wear a tie.

Philip Roe, Stamford Bridge