In Boston I bought a pair of Ecco shoes, only to have them fall apart in under a year.
Failing to learn the lesson, I bought some Ecco winter boots. They were fine when we left, only worn a few times, but after 8 days in Minnesota the soles have shredded away.
No more Ecco footwear for me. Sure, it’s light, but it’s expensive and it doesn’t last.
As late as 1850, shoes were made on symmetrical lasts. Both shoes were identical. The concept of “left shoe” and “right shoe” did not exist. (Also, the plural in English was still “shoen” until the 1800s.)
Mentioned in an article about T-shirts without the annoying tag that makes your neck itch.
This kinda boggles my mind, like going to the art gallery and looking at all the paintings from around the time someone discovered perspective. In that case, did people somehow survive for thousands of years without noticing that things look smaller when they’re a long way away?
I also find it amazing that the ancient Greeks believed that the laws of motion were such that things moved in straight lines. They thought that a projectile moved in a straight line, then dropped to the ground. You’d have thought that five minutes watching people play throw and catch would be enough to disprove that one, but apparently not.
In case anyone’s slightly interested, my new Birkenstocks are Richmond in Cordura. I think I’m going to have to order a second pair and stash them away.
See, when I listened to the Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy radio series season 2, I didn’t feel that the whole Dolmansaxlil sub-plot was excessive at all. Like Douglas Adams, I had had the experience of walking the length of Oxford Street, visiting every wretched shoe shop, in the futile hope that one of them might have a pair that would actually fit my feet.
The strange thing is, I knew so many people in England with the same problem. Go to America, they’d say. Or Germany. You can get shoes that actually fit your feet there. Only in England could an entire industry ignore the fairly basic requirements of its customers.
Which is not to say that it’s easy to find shoes that fit in America; however, it’s possible. Whereas I only once recall finding well-fitting shoes that didn’t need insoles in the UK.
God, what a pointless and trivial journal entry.