WELL, that’s torn it. All those fascinators will have to go, consigned to the fashion scrapheap. According to the Lord Snootys at Royal Ascot that is.

For at a time when everyone else is hunkered down in warm fleeces and big socks, the powers-that-be at Britain’s allegedly top racecourse have been turning their thoughts to summer and decreed that women will no longer be able to wear fascinators in the Royal Enclosure.

No, it’s full hat gear from now on, with not a bobbing feather clipped to hair locks in sight. I reckon the Duchess of Cambridge will be mightily hacked off about that then...

Spokesman Nick Smith has rather sniffily said that Royal Ascot “is not an occasion where you might dress as you would in a nightclub” although I’m not sure the clubbing girls of York clip on their fascinators before tripping down to The Gallery for a Bacchanalian Saturday night of fun and frolics.

In a tightening-up of the dress code, the length of skirts and dresses are also in Ascot’s sights, as are strapless and sheer-strap tops.

Even blokes – sorry, gentlemen – are being targeted, with waistcoats and ties becoming compulsory and cravats being banned. Not that many self-respecting types wander round in cravats these days, unless they've been Moss Bros suited and booted for a wedding, or have a bit of a spivvy persona.

Dress code can be a bit of a funny thing to get right. Apart from the strictness imposed by some – Buckingham Palace for garden parties, Ascot, organisers of posh Oscar awards-type dinners, pretentiously snooty restaurants that rob you blind etc, and we’re all prancing off to those every other week aren't we? – there's less requirement to fulfil perceived social mores of what’s the right thing to wear.

Is it all suits with no ties, or the very preppy-American chinos with button-down shirt collars for men in the workplace? Or the full-on tie and cufflinks look? And for the girls, is it skimpy T-shirts topped by a cardy with short skirts or shorts, thick tights and Ugg boots, or tailored trousers with a blouse or similar?

Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be power dressing any more, not that that was anything to write home about – all it did was give us lesser mortals an inferiority complex.

When, 20 years or so ago, I turned gamekeeper and left The Press to go and work in the railway press office in York, I was somewhat taken aback to be told I had to wear skirts or dresses with flesh coloured tights, which really affected how I answered the phone to questing transport journalists didn't it? And it was hideously impractical when supervising press trips to trackside locations or engineering depots.

Mind you, it did provide a sight for sore eyes, even more so than usual – I once accompanied the local executive team on the annual Big Boss state-of-the-nation visit of the region from London, and spent the day clumping around in huge black above-ankle safety boots, out of which poked tights-adorned American Tan legs skimmed by an office-style knee-length skirt with matching jacket, covered by a high- visibility vest and the whole lot topped off with a hard hat. Our old friends in Health and Safety were at it again, obviously.

For some reason such attire caused much hilarity among the railway photographers accompanying the visit, and several distinctly unflattering pictures ended up on mess room notice boards as a result. Royal Ascot fashion page editors, eat your hearts out...

I HATE dark mornings. You can't see anything. So will the teenager who delivers newspapers in Escrick village each morning at around 7am please, please stop wearing dark clothing and get some lights for his bike?

Three mornings a week I have cause to drive through the village around this time and each morning I see him – just. And every time I do it frightens me have to death that one of these days I might not until it’s too late.

I can do my bit crawling round the village at 20mph but he has to do his bit too. If not, his mum should tell him to get some bloody road sense.