There's been a lot of ink spilled over Scotland's Commonwealth Games uniforms and I don't intend to add more words to the debate except these:
minging they may be, but they're not as bad as the ones the Australian team will wear at the opening ceremony. If you expect them to be in flip-flops and budgie smugglers, or even to reprise their Barcelona Olympics rig of Hawaiian shirts and fedoras, think again. It's worse.
They've come kitted out for what the Sydney Morning Herald has called "the chilly Glasgow evenings" with thick green and gold sweaters, scarves and the sort of rainwear you're more likely to see on the golf course during the ladies' over-60s event. Only in the colours of the Australian outback rather than magenta or pale blue. Unsurprisingly, 78 per cent of respondents to a poll Down Under said the uniforms were a "national embarassment". Sound familiar?
The Canadians, meanwhile, are sticking with tracksuits for the opening parade but they have included in their team kit a pair of Rupert Bear-style pyjama bottoms in the Team Canada tartan - or "plaid" as they're calling it.
Now, my bottom line for any fashion choice is this: will it get me thrown out of Tesco? The answer for Team Canada's jim-jams is "probably", so here's hoping nobody needs to pop out for milk or Moose 'n' Onion crisps in the middle of the night. Even more colourful than the Scottish uniforms, though considerably more tasteful, are those worn by the Malaysian team. Their orange-and-black outfits - ankle-length dresses for the women; round-collared shirts, trousers and sarongs for the men - have been designed by Melinda Looi, who drew inspiration from the country's national animal: the tiger. "Tigers are majestic, strong and powerful creatures. I want our athletes to feel that way when they wear their kit," she told Elle Malaysia.
I think Looi is on to something here. If it's true that our national animal really is the unicorn, I think it would have made a better source of inspiration for the Scottish uniforms than a Tunnock's caramel wafer wrapper or whatever it is they're based on. Imagine how cool and not-at-all comical the sporrans would have looked with a massive unicorn horn attached?
The Jamaicans would be on to a winner too. Their national animal is the Doctor Bird, one of the world's most spectacularly-coloured hummingbirds. On a similar theme, Zambia has the majestic African fish eagle, the Bahamas have the pink flamingo and India can take their pick from another tiger (the Royal Bengal), the king cobra or the peacock.
Mind you, not everyone has such an impressive menagerie from which to choose. Gibraltar might want to steer clear of the Barbary macaque monkey - good advice for tourists to the island as well, actually - and I wouldn't want to be the athlete from Guernsey who ended up looking like the front (or back) end of a pantomime cow if the island's famous bovine was used for inspiration.
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