"Emperors" and their clothes

In last week's Sunday paper, I loved this bit of  verbal dexterity by David Mitchell ("Here's a look back at the year still to come"). It's so dextrously tongue-in-cheek that you may have to read it twice...

The Real Full Monty fetches £2.3m at Sotheby's

In a sale of film memorabilia, the no clothes the cast of hit Britcom The Full Monty wore at the film's climax were the star attraction. There was some controversy when the winning bidder said he thought he was buying the clothes the metal-workers had discarded earlier in the scene. "I'd wanted to get my hands on Robert Carlyle's pants," complained the anonymous millionaire. A Sotheby's spokesman clarified: "This lot isn't the clothes they weren't wearing at the end – this is the no clothes they were." Asked if it was a bit "emperor's new clothes", he said that "couldn't be further from the truth. That emperor was a nude man claiming to be wearing clothes. The absence of clothes in this lot isn't something we're denying – it's something we're celebrating. This is a chance to buy not only a unique, and easily storable, piece of film history but also a share in the very concept of nudity."

Some of the no clothes worn in the film (detail)