FastFreddy2

I saw (what I'm now told is) a house boat a couple of weeks ago. I also now know from the maker it's cost is £160k+vat with engine. (likely less without). Hopefully, I've added some responses copied over from the Meetings thread.

This boat 'thing' had completely derailed the thread, and the interest in boating suggests the subject deserves it's own thread. I will start another, specifically for 'water' activity.

The shirt is at least 2 sizes too large. Something oversize like that, shouldn't be tucked in. Huge pockets on a small frame don't work either. The skirt is bulky and overpowers her frame. A knitted (cable) sweater top would have balanced the outfit a little better. It would then have looked like a winter outfit, but then the skirt and boots are wintry clothing. Someone worth in excess of $380M and having an interest in fashion, shouldn't be making such basic "mistakes". I'm being critical because unlike 'any other woman' on the streets, Celine has the opportunity to dress in clothes very few people have access to (designer priced), though being such a high profile personality she would probably be gifted styles to promote the fashion houses anyway. I'm not 'hating' her dress sense in the outfit above, I just look at it and think "oops". Here are some MUCH better days: The last shown here, is particularly good for her body shape. The dress in the middle picture nips in at the waistline showing her her slenderness. The short hemline in the first picture, showing off her long legs which helps to accentuate the shapely bodice of the dress (where there might not actually be much shaping). She has a tendency to wear very loose clothing. She is doing that either to 'bulk up' her size (to avoid accusations of anorexia) or for comfort. Given what she can afford, I would think she could dress in softer/more expensive fabrics (ie Italian) that would show off her shape as well as be comfortable. Who knows ....

Full article >> here <<

She has the same frame size I once had. Back then I would/could eat anything and everything, and wouldn't put on weight. She obviously spends less time at KFC and McDoodles than most others. I like slim. As an aside, overweight people don't do heels. Not for long anyway. Her slimness will help her keep wearing a high heel. If she were British, we'd be calling her eccentric. Some of the clothing she wears is plain bizarre, but she's nearly always in a high heel and often in (suede) thigh highs, so I've nothing really to be disappointed with. She was in the papers again today, wearing a long skirt, and what could be rose coloured long boots. Skirt was awful, actually looked like curtain material .... Ah... found it. Does this skirt make my hips look big? (Yes.)

I'm already much further South than you (assuming your boats were moored local to you). I very much doubt I'd need to worry about frozen diesel here, we barely get frozen water (thankfully). I have read the specification of some boats for sale, and they include thermal lining. I doubt it was cheap to do. I'm beginning to understand, the mooring is possibly more important than the boat. I have priced up weekend stays in a narrowboats but the prices were the same as a weekend in Paris. Consequently, it seemed to me owning a narrowboat for a year, was cheaper than a couple of weekends away on one. Had I the money, I'd buy the boat linked above, for the sake of the mooring, and rent it out - maybe. As you have said you would return to a narrowboat but for having to work, I'd take that as a recommendation to the pleasure of life on the water. I recognise there are downsides to it, but there are downsides to living in a house too. Though a house is much easier to use for wearing heels.

Why am I wearing this skimpy/shiny black outfit and high heels? Because I'm going water-skiing of course.

Yes it does. An article (or two) claim 6 inch heels, though I suspect 5½". Nice find BTW. Whatever the height, it produced "stirrings" ....

The more I look, the more I am convinced, this isn't "fashion".

"Gucci shoes and latex socks". I don't care how 'fashionista' someone is claimed to be, "latex socks" = fetish. I've never seen a pair of latex socks advertised, but seen plenty of latex stockings offered......

This is the best I can do from screen shots of the shoes. They are 4 inches, I'm not sure about 4½ though. I'm not always (but nearly always) concerned about the height of the heel. The rise angle on Queen Mathilde's shoe is about 45' where the rise on Celine's is at least 60'. Experience tells me, anything above 50 degrees is likely to produce discomfort. That angle of rise is important from the point of a challenge to the wearer. The angle of rise created by a 4 inch heel on a size 3 or 4 shoe, is going to be significantly greater than a 4 inch heel in a size 10. Given that Celine's leg-to-foot angle is vertical, I can't see how she could wear a higher heel than that shown, without the heel pushing her point of balance so far forward it would tip her over if she stood still. As I said, I don't recall seeing this previously, unless the foot/ankle/leg was clad in ballet boots. It has me wondering what size shoe she takes since the rise angle shown, on a UK6 shoe might have that heel at well over 5 inches. If she is a size 4 or 5, it could be a more realistic 5 inches. Either way, it looks high, set back heel or not.

Given the train fare the rest of us would have to pay to get into London every year, , even London mooring fees look affordable. (Ref Poplar Dock.) I think some of you had thought that perhaps I was suggesting life on a London canal was the panacea to London living, or the route to an idyllic life. Living on a houseboat (powered or otherwise) surely has to do with a lifestyle choice, not just "living to a price". Had I the choice, I would live on water tomorrow. Be that on a river, canal, or the sea. Travelling up and down French canals would be great, as would living on a boat somewhere in the North-West Mediterranean. >> This << looks basic enough for my needs, with mooring fees at £98 per month. As I understand it, narrowboats (any riverboat) would only pay mooring fees if stationed in one place for more than 48 hours. As long as the cost of a bit of fuel every couple of days wasn't prohibitive, there might be no mooring fees to consider. Since I am a fan of Art Deco, the houseboat pictured, seems like the perfect water lodging place for me.

It's a shame you have not linked a video or news report. I did a search on Queen Mathilde of Belgium, but didn't find anything useful on the shoe front.

I'd be impressed to see someone walk around gracefully in a heel that high. I notice the line from her shin to her toes is vertical. I don't recall seeing that before, unless the wearer had 'ballet boots' on. I am wondering if she has more high heel experience than even an active imagination like mine perceives.....

I quite like Celine Dion. Maybe not so much for her singing, though some of it is very good. She remains slim when most people her age (49) are getting tubby. Recently she has been headlining with some fairly way-out outfits. Apparently, she is doing some magazine modelling work in France. (I haven't researched this extensively, just taking the headlines as being correct.) She is known to like a heel, and is reasonably keen on thigh highs too. Many of the images I have seen recently, have her in high boots, usually with a decent height stiletto heel. But for the fact she's enormously wealthy, and still grieving for the loss of her much loved husband, she would be the perfect woman for me. A couple of days ago, I saw some images of her wearing heels, that just about stopped me in my tracks. I didn't like the embellishments on her skirt, and I thought the buckle on her belt a tad too large, but her shoes were (almost) heart stopping. Have a look for yourself. From >> here <<

Sunday July 16th. The plan was for me and Mrs Freddy to visit CEX in Tottenham Court Road (TCR) and buy some older computer memory, then drive further West to the large stores for coffee and cake in one of them. Driving along Euston Road past TCR to turn South into Gower Street, I noticed smoke rising. Not thinking much about it, I drove down Gower and then into TCR where I almost immediately found a (free) parking space. Couldn't believe my luck! Fortunately, TFL + Puffer had failed again. Looking North up the road, in the opposite direction to the one we would be walking, the smoke I'd seen seemed to be getting worse. I had thought we arrived at the back end of the event, but not so. Many people were oblivious to the fire, and it was largely ignored by those around us until they saw me busy taking photo's and video's as the emergency services turned up. There seemed to be a significant amount of fire tenders arrive, with at least two police vehicles arrive for every fire engine. Having recorded the smoke, we left them to it and walked toward CEX. As we did so, a huge "Command" vehicle also joined others in attendance. Newspaper report. As it turned out, the store we went to didn't have the stock I wanted, and we started to walk back to the parked car. The police has closed off the road, and the traffic already in it was being parked up. Realising us and the car was going nowhere in a hurry, we decided to walk to the stores. It was a nice sunny day, with something of a breeze that kept the walk tolerable. Using the Sun as a guide to the West and South, we managed to walk through the back streets to the large stores in Oxford Street. The round journey on foot added up to 2 miles (I later found out) with me in 5 inch heels for the whole walk. We took refreshment in John Lewis with us sharing one of their cream scones. A bit pricey usually, but a much more attractive proposition with the benefit of a voucher. We popped into two of the three big stores, with me relieved to find the sale shoes that had tempted me, had been sold. On the return journey to TCR that took in the Topshop flagship store, there was no relief on finding two pairs of shoes still available, if I cared to buy them. I'd still like to own a pair of the Office Hampton, but £48 for shoes I may never wear? Thankfully they don't have full leather uppers, so I'm able to resist. By the time we finally arrived back at the car, traffic was moving freely and we journey home without further trauma.

Sunday July 2nd. I've mentioned them a number of times (usually referencing my avatar) but here is a picture of my usual 'adventure' shoes. They are not going to win any style awards, but ..... They are about 2mm shy of 5" high (so quite a challenge after a while), don't look overly 'girlie' from the front, and have a very stable heel. Best of all, they are COMFORTABLE, and I can literally wear them all day. On this day, I wore them like a 'regular' man's shoe. The plan was to go to the river, since shopping on a warm summers day just wasn't an appropriate way to spend the day. On the way there, we let Mr Google take on a fairly unusual route, that included driving past a canal. We stopped for a look, as there was parking. I've mentioned liking the idea of a riverboat holiday, so looking at narrowboats (or whatever they are called) always seems like a good idea. An ice-cream van was also tempting until we discovered a plain cone was offered at £3. We stayed for about an hour, and I discovered a canal boat I absolutely fell in love with, meaning I would gladly buy and live in given the chance. Mooring is everything, with the boat affordable (I found out after some considerable effort). How cool is that boat? No information available about it anywhere, until I did some research on a similar boat .... These are made by a small company, with commissions starting at £120,000. I've no idea what the mooring costs per year, but must be extremely cheap living in central London. I don't need a lot of space to live in, though Mrs Freddy might suggest I need a lot of storage space... Not every boat there was small though .... Having ventured out amongst the general public in a heel, with confidence high, we ventured into Regents Park briefly. The map there revealed we were some considerable distance from food and drink, and at the time we didn't feel walking in the heat without liquid with us, so we decided to return to the car. Before getting there, we were approached by a young - obviously well educated - ethnic person asking us directions to Primrose Hill. While miles away from home (in foreign territory) we'd just driven past the place he was looking for. We had a bit of a conversation about where we were actually from (he was from "North London"), but he meant actual North London, which is were we usually say is where we are from, because everyone knows London and may not know what "Home Counties" might mean. So having ascertained we weren't neighbours, e went off in the direction of Primrose Hill. I have no idea if he knew I was wearing a heel. One or two others did notice, but the only person that seemed to be worried about this was me. We waited a few minutes to make sure we didn't bump into him again, and returned to the car via the expensive ice-cream van. We were both hot, and thought it would be a nice gesture to treat Mrs Freddy to an ice-cream, despite it being the most expensive I might ever buy. Sending her off on her own (male vendors are often more generous to women) Mrs F got her ice-cream .... And it was a good guess on my part, as the vendor's equipment "apparently" malfunctioned and the cone came back with 3 times the amount of ice cream should in the picture shown on the side of the van. Yay! We both got a good share of cooling liquid. Getting to Spice Quay Heights and the now closed Design Museum care of Mr Google was something of a challenge. A bit like Tom Tom on 'shortest route' mode, it seemed we used every available back street (with their speed bumps) to get to somewhere that had looked like the end of a very straightforward route??? We arrived at a place we hadn't been to for some years, and spent the rest of the afternoon walking from there as far as Hays Wharf, stopping for a meal while we were out. Not much to see by way of heels, but not everyone wore flat shoes despite the hot weather. It made a pleasant change from the hustle and bustle of the West End.

I've read a lot of bad press about Vista, but didn't have the same experience myself. Had a laptop with it on, and I liked it. Still do. However, Win 7 is the one I'm most familiar with. As to the shoes ..... I think Mrs Russ is one smart woman. Not sure I'd be trying to win an argument with anyone that astute ....