WHEN it comes to shorts, how long is too long for swimming? If shorts are so clownishly long that you, or other pool-users, are likely to trip over them, they would obviously present a danger.

Mr Andy Toms’ shorts, however, were not so unusual. They ended a little bit below the knee. But he was still barred from entering a pool because they had too much material.

He was understandably perturbed and the decision sounds, on the surface, bizarre. (In fact, wouldn’t most of us rather bar the bloke whose trunks were too short?) Anyone who has done a lifesaving course will know that it’s extremely difficult to stay afloat when wearing trousers.

But Mr Toms’ long trunks were proper swimming shorts.

Would they really have created difficulties for him in the water?

At the end of the day the material fact in the Strange Case of Mr Toms’ Togs is that stopping someone swimming may make waves... but if an attendant has any safety concern at all he has to act.

In a pool you don’t dare take chances.