It's been a good Bank Holiday weekend for me so far.

My neighbour has invited me round for the weekend. We are going to watch the snooker world championships on television.

In my younger day yours truly happened to be a dab hand on the green baize so you can imagine how pleased I was to receive the invitation.

Even though we are watching on TV it seemed a good idea to get into the swing of things by dressing appropriately.

I turned up dressed in a smart suit with shiny shoes, a handkerchief in my top pocket, formal shirt and black bow tie after all that's what appropriate dress was back in the day for a member of an audience at a snooker tournament.

We settled down and turned on the TV.

Soon the players appeared dressed smartly in their waist coats and bow ties. How magnificent they looked.

As the camera panned out we could see the members of the audience.

To my horror some of the audience were wearing football shirts. Others were wearing jeans and several people even had T-shirts with advertising slogans across them.

I made the effort to dress properly even though I was sitting in a private house and watching on TV.

While the players were playing we all sat quietly in our living room so as not to disturb them. To my horror the audience in the theatre were coughing and spluttering and making all sorts of noises.

What a disgrace.

Years ago men would walk around town in suits with bowler hats and the ladies in nice dresses. If you look at the people walking thorough the complex these days jeans and leather jackets are the norm.

In my opinion there is nothing shoddier than a T-shirt with an advertising logo on the front. Many years ago when yours truly was a youngster I once had a girl friend who insisted on wearing such items of clothing.

Naturally she had to go to avoid showing me up.

It's obvious that over the years dress standards have slipped and surely the world is a worse place for it.

It doesn't take much to dress smartly and it makes such a difference. Can you imagine how smart everyone would be if they returned to old fashions dress values.

Walking through the clothes shops in Wycombe there appears to be a desperate shortage of formal clothing. However there is an abundance of cheap looking casual clothing made of denim and other non-formal materials.

I think it's time the shops started selling some decent clothes again in the hope of encouraging people to buy them and smarten up society in the process.

What do you think?