mostly david ephgrave

This morning’s snow forced me to take action: I went to town to buy some boots. When I say I went to town, I don’t mean it in a ‘pushing the boat out’ sense. This will be clear when I tell you I bought my new pair for Shoe Zone. We have a history (see here and here for evidence). Based on this track record,  I’m fully aware that anything I get there will be lucky to make it from the till to the shop door intact. You should never skimp on quality. I see these boots as a stopgap until I get something better. I’ve spent the last six months wearing my wedding shoes constantly (well, whenever I leave the house). This isn’t out of superstition. They don’t hold the same significance as my ring. It’s for security. The last time I wore a different pair, I fell over. On stage, no less. Watch the clip and marvel in my gracefulness.  Being in a shoe shop makes me feel awkward. It’s not my natural habitat. Everything I do takes too long. My fingers grapple uselessly with my l...

A couple of weeks ago, I invested in a new pair of boots. I was very happy with them until just a few days later, when they started to fall apart. It wasn’t as if I’d put them through any undue stress. I’d just been walking. I don’t think I have a particularly unusual gait. There must be something about my style of footfall that modern footwear just can’t take. (Footwear that costs £19.99, anyway.) Today, I headed into town with the sole intention of swapping my hobo boots for an identical - but less battered - pair. Unfortunately, this wasn’t to be. After a few minutes of wandering around Shoe Zone in my socks, I called off the search; they were nowhere to be seen.   It seems that they've been discontinued (presumably because they fall apart in a week). T here was only one other pair in the shop within a similar price range. I swapped them, grudgingly. There’s something about my new boots that isn’t quite right. They make me feel like a toddler walking around in...

Today, I bought a pair of emergency shoes. I don’t mean they would be appropriate footwear in a crisis; more that they were bought out of necessity. I’ve had a hole in my left shoe for the last few days - which, like the Traffic song, was letting in water. After a day of trudging about in damp socks, I decided that enough was enough. I walked into Shoe Zone with twenty quid in my pocket, knowing that all of their stock was mine for the taking (up to a limit of twenty quid). I spotted a pair I liked as soon as I walked through the door. Within minutes, I’d slipped out of my Swiss-cheese-like boots (in terms of holes, not smell) and was strutting around the shop like a Saturday Night Fever-era John Travolta. The transaction was over with quicker than you could say "Scientology". Before long, I was back on the street: new pair of shoes on my feet; old pair of shoes in my hand. The sight that greeted me as I leant over the bin outside the shop's front door ...