ITEM number two on my pensionista bucket list was a makeover.

To wear some cool threads but to not look old-goat-dressed-as-ram. Which is how I became subjected to the tender mercies of Sunday Herald stylist Carrie McAdam, and a participant in a fashion shoot.

With a 35in waist and 29in inside leg, I am not built for the catwalk. Maybe if the measurements were the other way round.

First lesson I learn is that I need not have spent all these years exiled in Marks & Spencer (and C&A in Spain). Higher-end fashion stores actually have some clothes that fit Tommy Fullfigure.

We enter the portals of Jigsaw, Glasgow and in a trice I am fitting into navy twill pleat-front trousers, slim and straight cut in the leg. Or drainpipe trousers as they were known in the 1960s, when these Jigsaw premises housed my branch of the Trustee Savings Bank.

Carrie says the burgundy and cream cotton check shirt brightens my complexion. Actually, it matches my red face. The Oscar and Fitch glasses are also red, complementing my bloodshot eyes. Even the brogues have red soles.

The key element of this outfit is the navy double-faced pea coat, once the preserve of American sailors but now cool. Carrie says: "The pea coat is also forgiving for those with a bit of a tum."

Sourcing a classy piece of outerwear will apparently be essential to the man-about-town look.

I have this vision of myself as a Harvard professor of law. No matter what I buy, the reality is more rumpled techie teacher. I recently threw a new jacket from TK Maxx into the bin after an American tourist approached me outside the Ubiquitous Chip and asked if I was a taxi driver.

I lied brusquely that I was the effing professor of effing philosophy at Glasgow effing University. In conversation it turned out he was an academic.

By coincidence my most recent attempt at classic outerwear is a walnut jacket from upmarket Massachusetts company Gant. But there is no New England effect. I look like the wee chubby one from Still Game. My stylist says to cut my losses and sell it on eBay.

Meanwhile, back on the catwalk, I am in sand twill trousers but there is a problem with baggy fabric at the pleats.

I have fallen in love, darlings, with a blue shirt with navy stitching. It takes me back to the 1960s when I spent a large chunk of my student grant to buy a sturdy but stylish shirt from Malcolm's naval outfitters in Argyle Street, Glasgow. The effect was pure Bob Dylan album cover and no-one mentioned double denim.

Carrie has added a not-very-Bob Dylan cardigan to the ensemble. "Men in their 30s and 40s are rediscovering the cardigan," she says. "Merino wool or cashmere is a good investment but on no account get your auntie to knit you one. It will not end well."

Thus inspired I have retrieved from my wardrobe a navy cardie in pure virgin wool by Eduardo Tucci of Corte Ingles in Barcelona (no relation to George at Asda). In a certain light I resemble Walter Smith of the Rangers.

For the summer, Carrie has furnished me with a pair of cobalt blue knee-length shorts. There is an embarrassing moment as young Jak, the make-up lady, rubs my legs with moisturiser to make them shiny and even more appealing to the camera.

I tell Carrie I already have green tartan shorts bought from M&S for the 1998 world cup in France and which are still eminently serviceable. Not for the first time in this makeover, Carrie says: "You are weird." Weird, like wicked, has apparently changed meaning to denote a sense of fun and adventure.

The shorts are accompanied by a pair of don't-step-on-my-grey suede shoes, befitting my pensioner status. The brand name of the shoes is Ask the Missus. My usual label is Get Telt by the Missus.

After all the casual stuff, my stylist announces it is time to get suited and booted. I have a confession to make on the boot front: I have not bought a pair of shoes in Scotland this century. All footwear expenditure has been for the benefit of shoe-shop workers on the Iberian peninsula.

I miscalculate my European shoe size and end up with a size 12 instead of nine-and-a-half. They are winkle-pickers so I am shod like a circus clown, but one at least in a decent suit. It is an elegant dark number by Sand at Cruise that even I cannot transform into a badly-packed parachute. It is part of a truly grand ensemble, coming in at almost £1000. The white shirt and purple floral tie are by Duchamp, renowned for their use of colour and pattern. The matching hankie is £55.

I used to have a small collection of suits from the days when a Glasgow Herald reporter had to be suitably dressed in case of a sudden audience with the Queen or the Lord Provost. My favourite was a Prince of Wales check number, which sadly I was not wearing when I eventually met Her Majesty. On reflection this suit, bought under the influence of the legendary men's outfitter salesman Ralph Slater, made me look like an extra from Ripper Street or another of the screen Victorian melodramas so popular these days.

It was in Cruise that I found the one expensive item around which I can build my new look. The young sales assistant said it would get me "out there". It is a blue linen-mix blazer by Paul Smith with, unless I misheard, horsehair involved. (Horses are everywhere these days.)

The jacket cost £500, which is slightly more than my monthly state pension. It will remain on the wish list if not the bucket list. Unless it comes up in the sales and Cruise throw in a Duchamp hankie.