Why I'm proud of boxing clever

Never mind that clean, smart undies should be a fundamental requirement of any right-thinking person, I have always had that nagging doubt in my head that today might be the day I step out in front of the number 66 bus while updating my status on social media. But thanks to a childhood of brainwashing, it is not the prospect of losing my life in a needlessly tragic road accident which worries me the most, it is the risk that I might be wearing substandard smalls, underwear which won’t stand up sartorial scrutiny in accident and emergency which holds the most fear for me.

It is mainly for this reason that I have not donned Y-fronts since Jason Donovan was last in the charts. Back in the late ‘80s, there was a fashion revolution which ushered in the age of boxer shorts, much to chagrin of traditionalists such as my late father, who regarded their existence as an affront to masculinity.

We now have trunks which, while offering, ahem, a degree of support, are nowhere near as restrictive as grandad’s Y-fronts and, let’s be honest, are far more appealing to the naked eye.

But it isn’t just fashion where boxers and trunks win the day as a study released seemed to put the argument to bed once and for all - when it comes to producing children, boxers are best. What surprised me most about the study was that academics were able to find 300 or so virile men who were prepared to confess to wearing old-fashioned underpants.

The news of this conclusive evidence about what is best to wear underneath your jeans was somewhat buried last week under the tsunami of column inches devoted to Boris Johnson’s seemingly deliberately controversial musings about burkas but was arguably more important as it directly affects millions of us. As a proud dad-of-two, I think I owe my dear old mum a huge vote of thanks.