So, Breast Cancer Awareness Month has come around again, and on the one hand anything that makes us check our breasts has to be a good thing, and on the other hand… so many things.

- Thing 1: surely we need to be aware all the time. If you sprout a lump on 1 November and don’t notice until the following October comes, then sister, you’re in trouble.

- Thing 2: even though I try, very hard, not to be cynical, I can’t help feeling that somewhere in a lot of organisations someone has been doing the maths regarding (cost of pinking up a product plus cost of donations minus sales uplift), and smiling. You might say this is a win/win. You might feel a little bit defeated.

- Thing 3: the pink. The endless, terrible pink. I’m not seven. The infantilisation of breast cancer (Breasts! Girls! Pink!) makes me cross and sad. Also, I have the sort of skin tone that, when added to pink, makes me look the kind of ill in which cancer would be the least of my worries. So I am not a fan of the pinkage.

And yet, despite the Things on the other hand, I want to do my bit. After all, I am healthy and happy and well and that is partly because I caught cancer early; I am, in many ways, an advert for breast awareness.

So here I am, modelling my new t-shirt.

(Alan took the photo.)

Tucked away in the bottom left, hidden by my cardigan in the picture, is this.

An acceptable level of pink. Well done, Debenhams.