I wore a pair of odd shoes to a concert this week. I discovered when I returned home that I had spent an entire evening with friends and colleagues wearing one blue and one black shoe. None of them had commented. Too polite, perhaps? Probably not. At least one of them would have derived enormous pleasure in drawing attention to my fatal foot folly, had he noticed. It is more likely that, just as I had no idea what footwear they were sporting, they had similarly failed to deem it necessary to check mine out.

Even more likely, the quality of the music at Wycombe High School’s Senior Concert on Tuesday night was of a sufficiently high standard to ensure our undivided attention. Even Boris Johnson swinging from the ceiling, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and juggling would have failed to draw our attention away from these talented young performers. I’m not sure why I am still surprised when the young people of Wycombe prove yet again how talented they are. But I was utterly mesmerised by the standard of musical ability displayed by the girls of Wycombe High School. Both ensemble and individual performances were excellent and some were simply outstanding. Violin, piano, guitar and vocal virtuosa abounded and had I closed my eyes, I could have been sitting in the expensive seats at the Barbican.

But I was instead at the top of Marlow Hill, in my odd Crocs applauding wildly.

And yes, I know that wearing odd shoes is bad enough without compounding the solecism in the eyes of many readers by wearing what I have now admitted are shoes that are considered by the righteous to be unbearably naff. But I am already old and wear purple on occasions, like the lady in Jenny Joseph’s wonderful poem ‘Warning’ – so I might as well go the whole hog and ‘wear terrible shirts and grow more fat’ while wearing my comfortable naff shoes.

My Jungle companion Hugo, former star of ‘Made in Chelsea’ was no more appalled when I outed myself as Croc wearer than if I had confessed to biting the heads off kittens for fun or liking Justin Bieber.

But I am, I cannot deny, old: I wear purple and unfashionable shoes. Comfort over style every time for me.

But I also like good music and applaud talent in the young, so I can’t be all that bad.