Hopefully this won't come as much of a surprise, but I think it's fairly safe to say that I'm not a transvestite.

One could be excused for wondering why this had ever come into question. Well, it's because I spent most of last week resisting pressure to dress up as a nun. And it came to a head on Saturday evening at a 119th birthday party in Bristol (actually more than one person celebrating, hence the age). With a filmic fancy dress theme, my parents and their friends decided it would be highly amusing if there was a mass attendance of nun puns.

So with a Nun on the Run, Nun Shall Sleep, High Nun, and The Nun With No Name already on board, they were eager to bolster their ranks. With me.

But I was having, erm, nun of it. This is partly because I didn't have anything with which to embellish my habit and wimple, and partly because I didn't want to cheapen the effort put in by such luminaries as Colin (broadcasting visionary responsible for animations such as The Wrong Trousers, Belleville Rendez-vous and Robbie the Reindeer reaching the screen) and Dad (whose fake beard both confused and frightened me).

I've never had any desire to dress up in skirts and make up, not even as an experimenting child. Eddie Izzard may be able to carry it off and look fabulous, and that's all good. Me, at 6'3" and pretty much brick shithouse stature, I'd just frighten the horses, worry the sheep, and scare children. And their parents.

I first experienced pressure to doll myself up during my first year at Secondary School. As is the custom in many places, my class had to devise and perform an assembly presentation for the rest of the lower school.

I can't remember the subject of the sketch, but what I do know is that I was cast as then-Prime Minister and every 11-year-old's dream woman, Margaret Thatcher. And everyone wanted me to play the role in her trademark blue dress. Despite the whole class wanting to see tubby little four-eyed Ben in a skirt, it was so never going to happen.

Eventually, I just went in completely the opposite direction, and played the witch as her predecessor Ted Heath, sailor's cap, pipe and all. I like to think, even 20 years on, that it was more of a satirical statement than me in drag.

Maybe it's me, but I just don't find men in women's clothing intrinsically funny. It's the clever not the clobber that makes me laugh.