cobblers

In ‘Sex and the city’ there is an entire episode when Carrie moans incessantly about her shoes being eaten by Pete - the dog of her amorata ‘Big Aiden’. Now don’t get me wrong, there is part of my psychological make up that is at least a Bit female and as such I can understand the draw of a Manolo, but I have to be honest: if I was having a go on John Corbett, the dog could quite happily chow down on my left leg before my ire would raise it’s ugly hackles.

These days however, I am beginning to feel the pain of hapless Ms. Bradshaw and her issues with footwear. If you talk to anyone roundabouts about their single biggest retail requirement, it will not be as I had imagined prior to arrival a Mcdonalds, tuppaware rep or Anne Summers but a cobblers. Which is strange because every week the penguin News sports a column called ‘Two minutes’ where they ask local drinking buddies of the editorial team to complete an asinine questionnaire which includes the rubric ‘If you could start a business in The Falklands, what would it be?’. Despite the fact that everyone is absolutely frigging desperate for a cobblers, no one ever suggests that they would like to open one. Normally the answers to this deeply analytical and searching poser are ‘A web based design company’ or ‘A Chinese takeaway’, which one being as far as I can tell largely dependent on how much ale has been first consumed down The Vic.

This is fairly typical of the esoteric approach to life in the Islands – something I put down largely to the fact that it is really quite a nice place to live and people are indulgent of each others need for personal expression whether it be drawing rubbish pictures of Turns using wax crayon and attempting to sell them down ‘Studio 52 to Latvian tourists for four hundred thousand pounds, or merely  dicking about in a tiny corrugated tin office with a student type CAD program and offsetting your losses by way of the FIG’s nineteen million pound surplus. I totally approve, but and this is a big but WOULD SOMEONE PLEASE OPEN A RUDDY COBBLERS!

I was watching TOWIE the other night and my face went all spastic because I had got used to dressing badly and never straightening my hair. In these islands, the definition of high maintenance is going to the extraordinary length of actually ironing your fleece. I have never watched TOWIE before and I proper loved it because all that bed hopping, hurling of abuse and dirty looks is exactly like being here. The only difference is that in Essex they wear ridiculous amounts of make-up and go for colonics. Here there is no need for a colonic, just drink a bottle of Exportation Vinto – has exactly the same effect and make up will simply get blown off your face so why bother?

The women of Essex like a stiletto shoe boot but even if they could buy such a thing locally there is no way that it would survive longer than 10 minutes. I have been conducting ‘scientific research’ and have ascertained that the average pair of boots will last approx. 12.5 days before requiring the services of a well stocked professional who can re-heel and soul in the 20 minutes it takes you to go to the bank and involve yourself in a road rage incident.

Twelve and a half days. I know you must think I lie, but tis not the case. I have a utility room full of dead shoes. The other day an islander acquaintance picked up the cowboy boots (don’t judge) I bought 23 days ago and inspected the split souls and angular ground down heels with immense gravity for over 5 minutes. He turned them this way and that as if formulating a plan of how to best make them functional again. Filled with hope I muttered ‘Can you see a way to make them useable?’

‘Aye’ muttered he. He took them outside and set fire to them. This mildly surprised me but he explained that the smoke would keep the midges at bay. There isn’t much you can say in these situations so I shrugged and went for a fag.

In the hospital Metal Kell decided enough was enough. I had arrived for a visit after a very rainy afternoon. Water had penetrated the souls and was causing a foam to rise up from the uppers like  bubble bath. It was clearly not a look, but what to do?

‘You are rubbish’, she snorted, ‘Get some Dockers. They don’t fall apart in two minutes, get them off Amazon, it’ll cost a fortune but you’ll never regret it’. Hmmmm. I spent much of my late teens in Dockers. They took forever to wear in and made me look like a not entirely heterosexual performance poet. Which come to think of it is exactly what they do for my colleague. I’ll give em a swerve, but I’m tempted to get some converse. They seem to last quite well. Until then – WELLIES. No way am I mucking up my expensive black suede FMBs just walking round Stanley. There is just enough Carrie in me to recognise that……

Borah out.