I think it would up my cool factor to 100% and make me fit in more

There’s something quite fascinating about watching other people – not in a creepy, horror movie way, don’t worry. I love to sit and people watch in busy places: watching them out and about, in unfamiliar places, clutching their ‘guide to’ for dear life. It’s my new hobby to tourist watch.

On a recent trip to London, I decided to join these much loved characters. Sadly though, I didn’t wear a cap emblazoned with ‘I Heart LDN’; I didn’t wear my camera on a chord around my neck; and most disappointingly, I didn’t wear socks and sandals. I have not inherited that love and way of dressing from my father. I was one of those cool tourists (note: no such thing existed before me). Wearing my wagalicious sunglasses in the rubbishy weather, posing like a model in the V&A and sporting a scarf as a make-shift umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eeh-eheh.

Walking around Trafalgar Square allows you do see some uhhhhmazing sights. Not just Nelson’s Column and the four Lions guarding it or the grand architecture of the National Portrait Gallery. No, no. There are literally bus loads of tourists swarming around taking photos, pointing about and chasing the pigeons. So imagine if you will all the uhhhhmazing outfits on show. Maybe it’s a rule that if visiting from a far and distant land, you must be fully prepared for all eventualities and look a bit silly: you’re probably imagining a man wearing camel coloured shorts (they might be a bit tight as they’ve been over indulging recently, why not? He is on his holidays); with a white t-shirt (advertising his summer holiday to Athens in 1997, which is tucked in, naturally); and he’s got a ruck sack sitting high on his back, or if he’s feeling adventurous, he’ll be wearing a bum bag.

Gorgeous.

Actually, I do appreciate and admire the bum-bag/fanny pack/hip belt. I hear the ever useful, unfairly slated, 80’s favourite is making a come back. Horrrah. I wouldn’t mind the Louis Vuitton or Gucci one. I think it would up my cool factor to 100% and make me fit in more (amongst the tourists, obvs).