A recent, rather beautiful piece published here told of how the writer, Druin Burch, initially somewhat alarmed by the variety of naked bodies he unexpectedly encounters while swimming in the Med (‘I wouldn’t mind if it was only young women,’ he says to his wife) comes to appreciate the loveable imperfection of the human form. I can’t say I’m with him on this. I totally understand fit women wanting to take their tops off in public as an expression of sheer high spirits; as a teenager, I used occasionally to do it. But humanity generally? Put it away, puh-leeze!

As a resident of the fair city of Brighton and Hove, I’ve got skin in the game, metaphorically. We’ve had a nudist beach here since 1980: the first in the country, it came into existence after an enthusiastic campaign by a local

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