Shyheels

Actually what we know as a penny farthing was known in the day as an 'ordinary' to distinguish it from the 'safety' bicycle, which had two same sized wheels and a chain - the bicycle we know today

Scary contraptions, the old pennyfarthings... at an airport again this morning, heading overseas. The dining room in the BA first class lounge, by the way, is decorated with art house prints of high heels...

Well, I still like my old fashion flat pedals instead of the new-fanged clipless ones as this gives me the ability to ride in any sort of footwear I choose rather than be confined to cleated cycling shoes, so at least the possibility of cycling in heels is open to me if I do chose. I can think of more exciting sports to attempt in heels though. How about weightlifting. Imagine the excitement of being a judge, sitting in the front row, and seeing a super heavyweight lifter with 266kg barely over his head in the clean-and-jerk staggering towards you in his pair of specially strengthened 6" Louboutins. Another great event - to observe, not participate in - that could be in stilettos would be the triple jump. Or the long jump.

Nope! It strikes me as a rather risky way to ride - if you were wearing stilettos you could easily slip your heel into the drive train or the front derailleur and that would be no fun at all. That said, I have seen a couple of very elegant women in stilettos and in high heeled boots pedalling Dutch bikes (with chain guards) in London.

I can't solve your traffic issues, but I can put you right on a pair of tyres that are damned near bullet proof. Schwalbe Marathon Plus. They are the tourers' gold standard. Fit and forget. I understand that it is possible to get punctures with them - it has been known to happen - but never to me and I have ridden tens of thousands of miles on them, on glass-strewn city streets to rough back roads in Africa to thorny Australian scrub. The handle well in the wet and they are incredibly durable. Figure on 15,000 to 20,000 miles for a pair. They are not lightweight tyres, but not as heavy as some performance driven cyclists like to make out. I have often covered 100+ miles a day using them on a loaded touring bike, so they are not overly stodgy and slow.

If you stay on the lanes, cycling in Britain is delightful and nearly traffic free.

The prospect of driving up to London, from where I live at any rate, is deeply off-putting, both for costs and hassle. The train is not great, but far preferable from here than the car. I can't think of anyone who drives from here into the city. My preferred form of transport for a holiday these days would be bicycle. I love cycle touring and have done much in Britain and Europe (touring as opposed to long solo cycling expeditions, which I have also done much of in much more remote parts of the world.) There is something elegant about seeing the countryside by bicycle, with a change of clothes in your saddlebag, and staying in B&Bs at night... To return to the subject of heels, a touring bicycle is not a very good mode of transport for wearing them, or OTK boots for that matter!

One of the reasons I do not wear my OTK boots when travelling - they are pull-on boots and there is nowhere to sit and take them off before you put them through the X-ray, only chairs on the other side of security. I have taken to wearing synthetic hiking boots for travel - they slip through security easily without my having to remove them and they are also generally useful to have wherever I am going.

Police or airport security would notice as well. You would certainly be spotted if you went into a casino. People there are trained to look for anything different or out of the ordinary. Not that they'd care, but they would notice.

With the train one can just look out the window, or people watch, or read or even sleep - no need for constant vigilance in traffic as there is driving, and the need to hunt up a parking place. And while flying has been made far more unpleasant in recent years, there is still the selfish and very 21st century luxury to be had in being incommunicado, left entirely to yourself, free and able to think and do as you please for however many hours duration your flight. I love that part of it. I love the business lounges too - the melding of transience and domesticity. Being at home on the road.

Flying is certainly no fun any more. I do a great deal of it - 150,000 miles in the past five months - but there is no joy in any of it. That said, I do like being new places, or revisiting favourite old ones and would much rather have memories than possessions. Which is just as well, because me choice of career has not exactly left me rolling in material wealth, but it has given me a rich store of memories from many lands.

That would have been a big surprise! I have never seen a guy wearing heels or tall boots. Not once. With a size 12 boot it would be hard for me to say my wife had jokingly left out the wrong shoes for me - my boots are pretty definitely mine!

You're probably right in that Liverpool Street would have been more productive but Victoria was where I was meeting my friends so I had to make do. And you're quite right, not a single pair of white stilettos to be seen...

That's true. A seminar would probably be likely to contain a higher percentage of women in heels. (That said, in an hour of watching peak hour crowds go by in Victoria Station on a Friday night - thousands of passers by; and a pretty good mix of city folk of all manner and stripe - I saw maybe four pairs of stilettos in all, none taller than, say, 3.5 inches) Even so, more power to Russ for pursing his style choices. Attending a seminar in heels with 100 well dressed women - whatever the percentage of heel wearers among them - would take a lot of admirable self confidence. No question about that.

Given the scarcity of high heels these days that could mean anything. I spent some time loitering in Victoria station last night and out of every hundred or so women that walked by, probably only one or two had higher heels than me - and I was in hiking boots.

They are indeed reprehensible - exactly the sort of elite autocratic emperors that have made the EU so widely loathed.

Spread the good will

That what the British Virgin Islands are for. Our money could go on the holidays we could not. It would get up the noses of the Americans too.

I think the UK ought to take a far more buccaneering approach. I see nothing wrong whatsoever in turning the place into an offshore tax haven. Imagine the money that would come pouring in. And the jobs from all the corporate headquarters that would be setting up here. And if that puts French and German noses out of joint, so what?

Maybe for Boris

I don't think TM needs to go quite that far - thigh boots and a stern look should do it.

These negotiations won't be for the faint hearted. As you say there is much at stake for both sides. The EU enjoys the benefits of a largely compliant media and the remainers here are highly vocal and given a generous platform from which to air their views and do their best to sabotage talks and negotiations. Britain does not do well in these sorts of negotiations, being far to conciliatory. Hopefully Theresa May will be harder headed than the others before here. I see signs that she may be. We can but hope.

So true. The UK has a pretty strong hand. They ought to play hard and go all-in

I just love how Theresa May is being accused of blackmail by the EU over her references to security in describing the need to forge some kind of a deal. And this after the UK has been menaced with all kinds of threats and blackmail by the EU, for months, not least of which is this demand for €60 billion before talks can get under way. Blackmail, bluff, whatever you call it - the UK has dealt itself into a of extremely high stakes poker. If Ms May is not using every bluff, joker, ace at her disposal - and yes, blackmail, where and when the opportunity offers itself - she damned well ought to be! Anyway, there's my rant for the morning....

I'm delighted. Bring it on!