What on earth is there to say about sparkly jumpers in the afternoon, I hear many/all of you with nothing better to do of an evening than read my rants respond?

Well, it’s just one of those several sartorial no-no’s that every child should learn at their parents’ knees. It’s just plain wrong. Like spreading muck, lambing and milking cows, there is a time and a place for everything. And the sporting of sparkly sweaters before 5pm – but preferably not a second before the stroke of 7 – is just as unacceptable as jeans at Ascot or pyjamas at parties.

I appreciate that modern times have relaxed many of the old what not to wear rules and I can go along with that to a degree. I welcome the disappearance of bowler hats from the City. My heart leaps with joy that a female leader of the western world routinely wears the trousers and some even wear leather ones. And men not having to wear ties to work seems a ridiculously belated liberation that can only have taken so long due to the financial interests of Tie Rack and lack of competition for retail space at airports and train stations. It’s a shame that they seem to have been replaced by more coffee shops selling the same awful beverages or, worse, the horrors of cheap accessory outlets many of which, I hate to say, sell sparkly jumpers. Presumably to folk who persist on wearing them before the sun is over the yard arm.

But like the fall of communism and the rise of television channels, the relaxation of sartorial rules goes too far in the opposite direction.

Thus we have the hideous spectacle of a foreign secretary in baggy shorts – and just because he’s on a bike at the time is no excuse. Nor soaring temperatures. Surely foreign secretaries should keep their knees to themselves and their calves should be pin striped at all times? The sight of a naked-from-the-waist-up Russian president did not cause his estate to soar in my book and all those who claim it made Mr Putin somehow ‘sexier’ need to be forced to watch the old TV series of Pride and Prejudice in which Colin Firth emerges from his dook in the lake over and over again until they learn what ‘sexy’ really looks like.

I remember the first time I watched a tennis match in which the players were wearing red shorts, yellow socks and bright pink dresses. Obviously I had only ever watched Wimbledon with its pristine whiter than white whites. I believed tennis outfits only came in white. And it was awful, painful almost, to see rainbow hues. Wrong, I feel strongly.

I do recall my own first personal crime against the acceptable face of fashion. It was my first interview for my first job. Yes, as a wannabe journalist. It was as a trainee with DC Thomson, those still standing leviathans of the written word or at least as it is still written the Sunday Post, Weekly news and was written then Jackie magazine. Jackie was to teenage girls in the 70s what Heat is now to the whatever they currently call themselves generation. And I so wanted to work for Jackie.

To say I spent hours, days and several sleepless nights deciding what I should wear to this crucial, make or break interview is to do a disservice to all the poor friends and family who surrounded me at that time. “W,hat about this,” I would torment my poor, farmer’s wife Mum whose idea of style was wearing a crossover pinny without slippers as I paraded my five foot nothingness (I’ve grown since I was 19) in mint green bibbed polyester hot pants and green leatherette over the knee boots. She wasn’t sure. She was being an out of touch Mum. What she should have said is “are you stark, raving mad? Wear a navy suit with a skirt and a nice white shirt.”

I forced my best friend to witness a parade of see through smocks, lunatic lime green loons and baby pink baggy dungarees before I alighted on a jumpsuit. A multi coloured, halter neck, floral jumpsuit. Much, much worse than it sounds. I wore it. I did not get the job. Someone i a smart dark blue suit and M&S shirt got it. Q.E.D.

And that’s one reason – an important reason – why I believe in the power of the right form of dress. Farmers should wear checked shirts and tweed jackets. Farmers’ wives should wear well cut jeans with nice grey sweaters over pale blue stripe shirts. Young farmers should wear anything but too tight white jeans (either sex), never wear pale grey shoes (males) and always beware extensive expanse of cleavage and/or bingo wing upper arms (females). Trust me, I was there. Back in the 70s. And now you have to live with Instagram and not just old sepia tinted photo albums. Learn by mistakes. Disasters. Catastrophes.

I’ve come up with Ag’s List. This is my definitive guide to what to wear and, more importantly, what not to wear. It’s my gift to you all to help you avoid missing out on brilliant careers, rich husbands and self respect. So, in no particular order and of equal importance, Ag’s Top 10 Never Ever Wear Unless it’s Fancy Dress:

1. Anything orange. No one suits it except the fruit

2. Dungarees. Unless you are Alexa Chung (google her, she’s not a real person) or Granny Island in the Katie Morag stories and she’s not that real either

3. Pale coloured shoes (men) – you’ll always look a spiv and they show the dung mercilessly

4. Fascinators. A crime against fashion whatever sex but possibly worse for women

5. Flat shoes – make your ankles fatter

6. Small handbags if you’re not a small person

7. Anything that isn’t at least one size larger than you think you take

8. Frills after the age of three

9. Ankle socks ditto

10. Man made fibres – I mean, you’ve seen what amess most men make of everything, haven’t you?

Now, go forth and look AMAZING!

PS Obey Ag’s Rules and I’ll let you off with the odd sparkle pre dinner….