Shyheels

Sounds like somebody had a big night out and a too-painful walk home

Yes, I noticed the stories about the school kids in Exeter and the French bus drivers. They all make a good point. My work does the me to places where tough knee-length leather boots are advisable, even in the heat. They won't help thwart crocodiles - which can also hide alarmingly well - but they work wonders against inland taipans, king brown snakes, and death adders.

I have work sturdy leather knee boots in the tropics on assignment. I was in a place where there were many snakes and the protection the boots offered more than compensated for their warmth in the already hot humid conditions. Indeed, some of the people around me were rather envious of my boots.

A thread like this was launched over on HHP and I thought I would pose the question here: how hot does it have to be before one stops wearing boots? Or, conversely, how cool is it before one resumes wearing boots in the autumn? Speaking for myself, I would certainly say this week's 30C-plus weather did not make suede otk boots an attractive option, although I did wear my hiking boots in town. A cooler rainier day today though has me back in my favourite footwear in the office.

You wild and crazy guy, you... Thunder and rain here, pleasantly cool - definitely boot weather

Indeed! Back in boots this morning

It most certainly isn't the case, being paid what one is worth - at least not with my major employer (although that didn't used to be the case; once upon a time they were the gold standard in my industry) My work has taken me to some very unusual corners of the world. I, too, much prefer the cold although the air at minus-56C felt astoundingly cold

Warmest weather I ever experienced was 53C in sub-Saharan Africa; coldest was minus-56C. Both were fairly unpleasant.

Growing old is not for the faint of heart. It certainly has been warmish the past few days with temperatures expected to get up to 30C again today. I really can't call that hot weather - for me 'hot' doesn't start until 35C at least - but the stickiness is less than pleasant. I certainly have not been the least bit tempted to wear my boots! My favourite sort of day would be 27C with a taut blue sky. In Australia one sees that often. Again, perhaps not the best weather for otk boots, but a lovely day nonetheless.

Not easy to pass on wisdom, anecdotes and family history. The market is small, as I have discovered. My own childhood and adolescence had a lot of startling events and episodes in it, some of it set against quite unusual backdrops too. Lately though my two teenagers have started to express a bit of curiosity. My own family - parents and grandparents, now all long dead, were very good at passing down stories through the generations, to the extent that I know quite a few personal stories about my great-great-grandfather, and even a few about my great-great-great-great-great grandmother, born in 1795. They lived on in anecdote and story to the extent I feel as though I knew them. I have passed down a few of those tales to my own children so the old folks will continue to live on.

Funny the different perspectives one has. In the America of the 60s and early 70s, where I spent my childhood, Converse sneakers were standard fare, practically two a penny. So were those kinds of goofy kids bicycles - Schwinn spiders, with their motorcycle/chopper styling, high handlebars, banana saddles and sissybars. A genuine ten-speed 'racer', on the other hand, with drop bars and 27" wheels, was quite exotic. We called them "English racers" and envied people who owned them

When I was a kid in the 60s and 70s Converse All Star sneakers - the classic hi-top - were just your basic cheap canvas sneaker that kids generally wore as a matter of course; not a fashion item at all. Converse, Keds and P.F. Flyers were the main brands. All retro-trendy now... I did buy a few pair of interesting candy-coloured Converse sneakers earlier this year when they had a deeply discounted sale on their website; bought 'em for a song. Still nice shoes.

The only time you get negative attention at security is if you are one of those people who manage to carry all kinds of metal things on them which they then forget about and have to keep going through again and again, to the total annoyance of everyone behind them. You know, oops - mobile phone. Then, oops, belt. Then oops, watch. Then oops, spare coins in back pocket, followed by oops, fountain pen etc. That will get you noticed, most unfavourably.

I fly a lot and the go through security a lot. I don't wear my otk boots when I fly, although not because I worry about being noticed - I truly doubt that even wearing otk boots I would merit more than two seconds' thought. In my case I am usually going somewhere fairly 'rustic' - jungles, mountains, archaeological sites etc where you just wouldn't wear nice suede boots, and packing otk boots in my large size (for apres wear) isn't practical because the take up too much space in my suitcase and I like to travel light. But honestly, I doubt security would notice, or care, if I wore them. I would have to the them off to go through the metal detector - people wearing boots just do. But as long as one took them off and put them in the plastic container for the X-ray machine, nobody would notice or care.

Ja, sehr gut!

Yes, interesting bit of history. I must say - and pun intended - this PVC thread certainly has legs...

I am sure there are whole doctoral theses that could be written on the sociology of men in heels and the fast great fashion taboo

Zips on boots are usually on the inside of the leg. Agree on asymmetry.

It is odd that men in heels should continue to be such a major taboo when all else seems completely okay.

Confidence is the key with anything, along with wearing something well. With my PVC jeans, as I say, I always pair them with something softer and colourful. Nothing remotely suggesting fetish. And I mainly wear them informally around my office.

She won't see out the year as PM.

None taken. Just wondered about the supposition.

The fly front isn't reversed in my jeans. I am tall, not large. Indeed my legs are quite slender. And I tone down the PVC - it is noticeable, obviously, but nothing 'in your face' But frankly, even if the fly on ones jeans was reversed, why would any wholesome person be transfixed, staring at one's crotch? If that is your experience it sounds to me like you might want to start hanging around with a better grade of people.

Tory Europhiles are quite capable of stabbing their own party in the back. Europhiles in general have but one true loyalty and that is to the "European project". As to May, she might linger for a while but she's made an awful lot of enemies with this ill considered election and wooden campaign. She owns this mess, along with Davis and a couple of inside advisors. No way known she'll be at Number 10 for another five years, or even one. There's too much rank-and-file party room hate floating around, and what's more, she's burned her credibility and standing beyond her ability to retrieve them. She's damaged goods and widely perceived as such, in the U.K. and in the EU. She'll go. I am sure there are half a dozen people tonight plotting their courses of action and quietly starting the business of shoring up support.

I worry about the prospects for Brexit. I see the likes of Gina Miller are proclaiming the election result as a victory for the remain camp, a rejection of a hard Brexit by the voters. In point of fact, Brexit scarcely figured in the campaign - Labour was all about social services, tax and spend, and the Tories scarcely campaigned at all. No matter what spin anyone wants to put on it, this was a public humiliation for Theresa May and the Conservatives and May's personal standing at the negotiating table is much diminished as a result. The EU negotiators will know this, and play to that weakness (as anyone would in their position) while the makeshift alliance forged with the DUP will create enough shifting sands and potential for ambiguity at home to undermine any strong stance she might care to take on Brexit. Make no bones about it, the remainers will see themselves as very much on the ascendant and May will not have a strong enough position to contain them.