Cotswold Life’s editor, Mike Lowe, considers a matter of great local importance which has sparked national debate. Are red trousers still acceptable wear for the Cotswold gentleman, or have they – God forbid – become ‘common’?

I found myself being drawn into this contentious issue a few weeks ago when, while sat at my computer with the Jeremy Kyle Show on in the background – surely one of the joys of working from home – I noticed that two of the inmates of this modern-day Bedlam were wearing red trousers. I was then foolish enough to Tweet my view that if the kind of people who participate in this televised bear-pit were wearing red trousers, surely they could no longer be considered appropriate dress for a man who drives his Range Rover to Waitrose to buy a copy of the Racing Post.

This is what then happened. A couple of members of our almost entirely female staff received a phone call asking: “Do you know what Mike Lowe’s trouser size is?” Now I know we’re a close-knit team, but that information isn’t exactly pinned on the noticeboard at work. I believe that my wife was then inveigled to go rummaging through my wardrobe.

Then came the mystery package, containing a pair of trousers in my size, that were definitely red. They were in fact RED.

Cirencester’s top-class tailor, Tom Wharton at Barrington Ayre, had seen the dissenting tweet and spotted the opportunity to shame me into providing him with a bit of publicity. Well, it’s all in the game. The problem was, I was then honour-bound to wear said trousers in public, and so I duly sported them at a Cotswold Life Food & Drink Sponsors lunch at Ellenborough Park – a fitting venue, I thought, for such glorious apparel. And here is the pictorial evidence.

I will confess that I changed back into a pair of jeans in the car park on the way home. (Sorry, Madam.) I had to stop off at the shops and I didn’t fancy getting beaten up outside Nailsworth Co-op.

The trousers are now back in the wardrobe. It’s a shame because they are beautifully made. It’s just that they are very, very, err... RED.

And there, sadly, they will probably remain. Until my inevitable appearance on the Jeremy Kyle Show.

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So I walked into the office one morning and asked Candia McKormack, our funky assistant editor, how contributions to this month’s Pets Issue were going.

“Great,” she said. “Someone’s just sent me their blind gerbil.”

As she spoke I noticed a large padded envelope on her desk. No, surely not?

Fortunately it was just a photograph of the creature that she’d received.

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The picture of Odin the Blind Gerbil is in the November 2013 Pets issue of Cotswold Life. We hope you enjoy his appearance, along with the rest of the Pets Issue.