The weather may have been a bit changeable today but I for one have enjoyed myself watching billiards on the picture box.

Do you know I think billiards is such a gentlemanly sport. With competitors dressed in white shirts, smart waistcoats and bow ties the players emanate an aura of smartness and decency.

Naturally my good self also dresses smartly to watch the players even if I may be in my neighbours living room miles away from the actual arena where the event is taking place.

However I am dismayed to see so many of the audience at the venue in Sheffield dressed in rough looking casual clothes.

Sadly some of the spectators looked more like the drunken yobbos you expect to see in Wycombe town centre after dark.

Over the years casual dress has crept into so many areas of modern life and one feels the world is poorer for it.

Years ago gentlemen would wear top hats or bowler hats indeed even the working classes wore caps.

These days most people have given up wearing headdress and the rabble of society have sprouted hideous baseball caps which they often wear the wrong way around.

In the clothes shops more floor space is devoted to casual clothes than to proper suits and formal wear. What would be deemed unacceptable only thirty years ago is now par for the course.

Standards of dress have declined almost as fast as moral standards. As the world sank into the chasm of rough dress so the masses started a long and slow descent into the abyss of moral decline.

What amazes me is that casually dressed people who live in houses with unkempt gardens have the cheek to complain about potholes in the road.

Surely there is a similarity between a road riddled with potholes and a roughly dressed person? If the drivers have no pride in their appearance why should the roads be presented nicely?

While standards and expectations continue to fall our world will never get better.

I think its about time minimum standards of dress were brought back into society. At sporting events, at work and even for those claiming the dole the world would benefit from an upturn in levels of presentation.

Only the other day my good self passed by the dole office in Oxford Road and upon seeing the way those coming out were dressed I thought to myself is it any wonder they are unemployed.

In my opinion the introduction of 'training shoes' or 'trainers' as most people call them heralded the worst decline in appearance for years.

How often do the youngsters actually clean their trainers?

When I was a teenager my shoes were cleaned and polished every day. But then how on earth do you clean trainers?

As yours truly has always said you can judge someone's character and outlook towards life just by looking at their shoes.

It's about time the tide turned and standards in society were increased rather than continuing to sink lower by the day.

As for myself, well I still dress for dinner every evening and while writing this blog my good self is wearing a proper collar and tie.

What do you think?