They are quite ghastly.

Hefty and hearty need not be oversized, but if I had to choose between a world full of stocky men in muffintop rustic sweaters of one of svelte androgynes in clingy paper-thin v-necks, I think I'd pick the former.

I like heavy knit sweaters, heavy tweed jackets, overcoats, wooly scarves, all the accoutrements of winter in fact. Trouble is, it's rarely cold enough to wear them in London.

I don't mind, t' Arran, used to wear em back in't 80s when they had a vogue. Fisherman's rib jumpaz too.

Not worn one for a while mind, its a basterd to moor the trawler these days...

Az for ostentation, I'm all for it.

...give it to em..GOOD & 'ARD.

Regrettably some of us are so plebeian as to have to worry about heating bills (hard to believe in this age of affluence I know), so wearing thick sweaters has a practical as well as aesthetic value.

I've never seen it as preppy though.

Pretty much modern central heating has made the waist coat and thick jumpers redundant unless you're going out into the wilds in the bleak mid winter. One could say that too for Viyella shirts, but there's always those who have inherited stately homes who can only afford to heat one hall in the great house.

Over here the worst heating crime can be found on the Randstad rail, which is a hybrid between a train and a tram, this time of year the heating is turned on so you get in the compartment to find it overly heated with your winter layers, packed to the brim at rush hour and an incubator for all the seasonal flus and diseases. Truly an idiotic solution for protecting the public from the inclement weather of the winter season.

It is pretty funny that chunky sweaters are controversial suddenly. What's next on the chopping block? Chinos? Blazers? Loafers?

Fleeces are ubiquitous throughout the UK and probably the rest of the world. Personally I've never seen one I thought looked good.

I've had to go on meds because of them.