BROWN

I have sometimes been known to contemplate growing old. I would have said old and grey, but as my hair has been (at least partly) grey since I was 13, that doesn't make sense in my case.

It appears to me that when one gets past a certain age, one is taken over by an overwhelming urge to wear brown all the time. As I write this, at the age of 37, I have not yet felt even the slightest tug in that direction. I do not own any brown items of clothing, except perhaps a pair of shoes. But there is no escaping the inevitable. At some point in the future I will be donning a full length brown outfit (including hat) along with the best of them.



I wonder if this will arrive suddenly or gradually. Will I wake up one morning and just be totally disgusted with the colourful array of items in my wardrobe, or will there be a gradual slide towards drabness which happens so gradually as to be unnoticeable.

I recently read a little tale called Frog Soup. It went something like this. If you try putting a frog into very hot water to make frog soup, the frog will be shocked by the sudden change in temperature and will immediately jump out before it gets boiled. If, on the other hand, you put a frog into warm water and then gradually turn up the heat bit by bit, the frog will not notice until it is too late and will swim around blissfully unaware of its impending doom.

I think that is probably what happens with brown. If someone brought a whole wardrobe full of brown clothing round to my house right now, even if they were giving it all away for free, there's no way that I would accept it. However, a brown gift here and the odd item which you are not quite sure whether it is brown or a brownish shade of green and before you know what's happening, you open your wardrobe to discover that over 50% of the things in it are brown.

Be warned. That is all I am saying.