This week’s staggering revelation about men is that they only buy their own underwear for 17 years of their life - leaving the task of selecting boxers and extra-large Y-fronts to their mothers and subsequently their wives.

Between the ages of nought and 19 men buy absolutely none of their pants, according to research by Debenhams. At university age they begin to get the hang of it buying on average 8 pairs of pants per year. They then peak in their early twenties buying themselves 31 pairs of briefs annually.

This brief acceleration in pants-purchasing allegedly reflects men’s wish to find a mate to see and appreciate said undergarments. The success of this means that by age 33 a man’s pants-purchasing rate has plummeted to just three pairs per year, with their wives and girlfriends picking up the deficit.

After several years of pant-related bliss men suddenly get interested in their underwear again aged 38 to 40, according to the research, and the buying rate rises to an average of 12 pairs per annum.

“You can tell when a man is looking for a new partner by the number of underpants they buy for themselves. If he buys more than 31 pairs every year then he’s either still trying desperately to impress the woman in his life – or else she’s not The One,” says Rob Faucherand, head of men’s accessories buying at Debenhams.

“Men are now so openly affectionate with each other they’ve taken to signing off texts to their male friends with a kiss (x), giving rise to a new breed of ‘Metrotextuals’…” or so claimed a press release that arrived in my inbox yesterday.

I find the idea of men being lauded as “so openly affectionate” (wow really?) that they put kisses in text messages to each other not only patronising but seriously blinkered. After all whoever uses text messages (the mechanism that removed the need to call or write to someone at any greater length than 15 words) as an expression of their emotional openness has bigger problems.

Nonetheless the statistics got me thinking about text etiquette and I decided to test out T Mobile’s research by doing a little text kissing of my own - despite the fact the being female I'm not exactly on the 'Metrotextual'  wavelength. 

I found that after texting a male friend and including one small ‘x’ in my message I received one small ‘x’ and one large ‘X’ in response. Wow halt the serious emotional outpouring! But then, after messaging a different male friend and adding three or four kisses I freaked him about and he sent back a polite but x-less reply. 

Then, I decided to reverse the idea and refrained from adding any kisses to a text I composed to my boyfriend. He was pretty pissed off about it and asked me about it almost immediately. This surprised me quite a lot as I’ve always thought of text kisses as a fundamental but largely meaningless part of communication like saying “kind regards” or “Dear so-and-so”. 

His assumption that the absence of kisses was a sign of negative emotion comparable to using capital letters in an email leant slightly more credence to the text message study than I’d first given it.

The idea proposed that “the advent of mobile phones and social media means more communication is done non-verbally, and through this is seems men can more easily share their feelings with others” is still pretty depressing, but I’ll be a bit more sensitive to my male friends next time. 

The Tories, annoyingly, hitched their wagon to "change" with their slogans "ready for change" and "vote for change"; although I've no idea where they stole that horrible green and two-tone blue colour combo from - it certainly wasn't Obama.

Now environmental campaigners have made a land drab for "hope" in advance of the big climate change bun fight in Copenhagen next month. Hopenhagen (see what they did there?) is an attempt at a global movement aiming to influence change (ahem) and forward thinking in solving the problems caused by climate change. They've got a fancy website - check it out here.

But if I'm honest, I'm not here for the sloganeering, the hopetitude or the environment, I'm here for the music. Hopenhagen has put together an ad campaign to support the cause and two of the clips have some interesting music attached involving the brilliant avant garde/experimental/new music organisation and group Bang on a Can.

The first ad, "Water Shortages", features "Believing", a dramaric composition by Julia Wolfe, one of the founders of BoaA, performed by the Bang on a Can All Stars. (Incidentally, the Bang on a Can All Stars are playing in London on Saturday night with Steve Reich - see you there!)