Bad Matrix looky-likeys

Keanu Reeves is directly responsible for adding a splash of humour to the great British High Street in recent years.

As Neo (a be-shaded, outrageously-cool and mysterious super-human from a cyber-reality) in The Matrix, he's inspired a certain disillusioned generation to mimic an immediately identifiable style. Amusingly though, the individuals he seems to have inspired are the least equipped to pull the look off.

Britain has always had a proud heritage of spotty teenagers and geeks, though a notable proportion now shamble round the streets dressed in bargain-basement facsimiles of Neo’s trademark ankle-length leather coat which look more like they've been constructed from bin-bags than cow-hide.

With Terry Pratchett novels tucked one of a multitude of pockets and a Red Dwarf T-shirt dutifully ironed by mum, they shuffle around shopping centres up and down the land; though rather than flouting the space/time continuum by switching effortlessly between dark reality and an alternative netherworld, these lonely individuals tend to stroll past Dixons, looking glum and glinting toothily due to the fact that they typically have less skin pigmentation than those weird translucent fish at the bottom of the Marianas Trench that never experience sunlight and explode if brought to the surface. They probably work in IT and are able to spell their names in both Klingon and Elvish.

Bizarrely, the coat also never leaves their shoulders irrespective of temperature. It’s practical in the winter months to keep warm, though it can be hazardous in the summer where exhaustion and heatstroke cause the wearer’s shoulders to drop, placing the hem in imminent peril of being scuffed or smeared with dog shit.

They’re harmless enough though. I look on them as I might look upon a five-year old out shopping in Tesco with his mum, dressed from top to toe in a Spiderman costume and emitting high-pitched "Ka-Pow!"s while leaping in and out of the aisles. Let 'em have their likkle Matrix costumes I say. Bless 'em all.