Laura Craik on Pippa Middleton's honeymoon jog

I type this with tanned hands, for I have been on holiday. Twice. Just in case you missed it on Instagram. No, really, have a look. The pics are as dreary and irritating to all except my immediate family as everyone else’s holiday pics. They’re also as painstakingly curated. Although it wasn’t just the mosquito bites and family arguments that were edited out. It was the menswear.

Every time I tried to snap a pretty view, a man would stroll into the frame, in shorts festooned with lobsters. It started at the airport — a twenty-something bloke in a floral dress and pink, fluffy slippers — and got worse from there. Slipperboy was clearly on a stag do: what was everyone else’s excuse? Blindness? Sunstroke? Boris Johnson as a sartorial role model? I’m not even talking about the usual ‘oh God, men’s sandals — aren’t they awful? Put your hobbit feet away before I barf’ schtick. Plenty of women (okay, me) have hairy toes, and often forget to shave them. Besides, if women will insist on wearing ‘cold shoulder’ tops, they’re hardly in a position to slag off mandals. Holiday dressing is rarely anyone’s finest hour.

That said, if you cast your eyes over a group of women on holiday, you will at least glean some sense of what year we’re in. With men, it’s often hard to tell the decade. Woman’s holiday look = pool slides (ideally with a wedge, for extra leg length) + jaunty beach bag + white broderie anglais to show off the tan. Man’s holiday look = sandals with Velcro fastenings + pink shorts + polo shirt with a large number on the back, presumably to convey some sort of rugby prowess. It’s the same look — possibly the same garments — they’ve been wearing since circa 1996. They need to google these guys (above right) to stop them blighting the horizon with their strange, off-duty estate agent ways.

Jog on, Pippa