According to yesterday's Telegraph (which dear readers like myself will have noticed they're endlessly running advertorial for the online shop Mr Porter): ".....retail analysts Mintel, the men’s clothing market is now worth £13.5 billion in the UK and has grown by 22pc over the past 5 years, many men don’t actually like shopping. 'They certainly don’t like shops,' muses Langmead. 'Our research shows they hate the small changing rooms, feel pressurized by the sales assistants lurking outside, loathe running the gamut of the perfume spritzers in the beauty hall and don’t want to have to make instant decisions.'

Shopping online means they can read, digest, walk away, take a sneaky look in the mirror ('men are much vainer than women, but hide it, and they have very fragile egos') before returning to key in their credit card’s vital statistics. 'Men like value. They have to know that they are going to gets lots of wear out of something.'"

So according to that, the men's clothing market in the UK is massive and is growing fast. Is this growth all online I wonder? Certainly, most of my stuff is procured on line these days, but not, I hasten to add from The Telegraph's beloved Mr Porter.

1.: AR had very boring, middle-of-the road clothing. I have never bought anything there. Their shop in Oxford reeks of "small town" in a bad way (whereas E&R's shop in Oxford is lovely).

2.: I dont like "shopping" in a girly way (oooohh lets try this new igent shop over there, all salesmen have beards). I love to solve mens problems, get something fixed, complete my kit. That is easily done in J street, or online.

McGregor Clothing Group here in The Netherlands is the next domino to fall......12,000 jobs in the Benelux to go.

None of these Ralph Lauren clones can compete with the original. One of my nephews works p/t at one of the Ralphy-boy's on an outlet village in the UK. Allegedly, the turn over in the one shop is GBP 50 million a year! Phenomenal.

I can't see that other New England lifestyle clothing brand that is River Woods surviving either.