Ian McMillan: I’m sticking my neck out to make a smart move

If singing in a piercing way is singing at the top of your voice, then this chap was whistling at the top of his lips.

Normally I avoid public whistlers because once you look at them they’re your friend for life and they go through their entire tootling routine for you, from James Last to the Lesser Warbler, but on this occasion I slung caution to the wind and turned round and looked.

It was a middle-aged bloke and he had stopped walking and was gazing at the river, still whistling. For an awful moment, I thought he was going to jump and then I noticed that he was loosening his tie and for an even more awful moment I thought he was going to jump naked but then he took the tie off, twirled it round his head like Hopalong Cassidy with a lasso and flung it into the water, where it bobbed and wriggled like an eel before it got carried downstream. He turned to me and said: “Never again, lad. Never again!” He carried on his way, still whistling.

I think about him a lot, that tie-chucker. I reckon he’d just finished work, just been made redundant or retired from an office and for all of his working life he’d been forced to wear a tie, that little badge of servitude round his neck, and now he didn’t have to wear it any more, and he could be casual for the rest of his days, and he celebrated with a little tie-drowning ceremony in the middle of York.

I’ve always been proud of the fact that for the whole of my working life, for the past three decades, I’ve never had to wear a tie. The only time I’ve knotted one up (sweating, anguished in a mirror, flailing and failing) has been for weddings and funerals. And then I look like a clown or a Darfield version of an 18th century fop.

But, gentle reader, whisper this: I’ve been thinking about smartening myself up. I’ve been thinking about starting to wear a tie.

Yes, I know, it’s a heck of a shock, a heck of a seismic jolt of information to come to terms with on a Tuesday morning. I know what you’re thinking now: this can’t be Ian McMillan. Ian McMillan can’t be writing the column today because Ian McMillan would never contemplate wearing a tie. Well it is and I am and I am.

Let’s try and figure out why. Why am I thinking of changing the way I look? What’s behind this sartorial urge? Is it late middle-age and an attempt to look mature? Is it the equivalent of starting to listen to country and western music and watching costume dramas on TV? I don’t think it is. I think it’s a response to the age of austerity that we’re steaming into.

Around us, things are starting to look shabbier. People are starting to look as though they’re under pressure. Uncertainty hangs in the air like cheap aftershave. ‘New ‘Uncertainty’ for men! Worried about losing your job? Anxious about paying your bills? Try new ‘Uncertainty’; it won’t make you smell any better but at least you’ll smell like everybody else!’ Not much of a marketing ploy, I realise.

Somehow there’s something primitive deep within me that’s telling me to look more presentable because it might help me in these harsh times. I can’t understand it: I’ve always been proud of my casual look, my open necked shirt and my slacks, but now I look in the mirror and I see a man who belongs to another era.

I see a man who belongs to the years of milk and honey that preceded the coming years of empty milk bottles and shattered beehives. I see a man who needs to get a grip. I see a man who needs to take a long hard look at his fashion sense. In short, I see a man who needs a tie.

So now, here I am, in front of the mirror with a tie in my hands. Has it come to this? It has, Ian. The tie is a blue striped one. I look at it; it looks floppy and ineffective, but once I put it on I’ll be powerful. I’ll become like one of those kids you see on The Apprentice, or one of those thrusting young execs you see barking into their phones about moving their eight o’clock and swapping it for their two o’clock and tying somebody down to Thursday afternoon because they think they’re Time Lords.

I’m hesitating. I lift the tie up and drape it round my neck. Hard times are coming and the tie-wearers will inherit the Earth. The smart people will rule. I lift one end of the tie and try to loop it under the other end of the tie. It’ll be okay. I’m starting to sweat. I’m starting to whistle...