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euchrid

Man In Heels Sighting

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Monty Python Live (mostly), shown on UK Gold last night included a guest appearance by Eddie Izzard ("Bruces" sketch).   He was wearing black stiletto boots quite clearly.  No ad-libs or other comments made about his attire.  It looked quite normal to be honest.  Good to see that, apart from the boots, Eddie had mainly male clothing on & very little make up.

 

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Phil Oakley from human League wore heels on stage all the time back in the eighties and out and about.

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Phil Oakley from human League wore heels on stage all the time back in the eighties and out and about.

 

A different time... A better time.

 

He probably preceded Boy George by a number of years. I remember The Human League album Dare very well. It was pretty much about in my personal 'heyday' (if that is the correct spelling). I had a decent stereo in my car, and it got a lot of late-night use. ;)  In fact around that time I might have had to pull my trousers up once while watching a blue-flashing light park up next to my car ..... :huh:  Happy days!  :D

 

 

If I remember, Mr Oakey was fairly androgynous at the time. Asymmetrical (femme) hair style, makeup ..... No real surprise about the heels, although I'm disappointed I must have forgotten about that. :( Loved that album though. Was a bit prophetic, because my then girlfriend (who I was quite sweet on) broke up with me for another fella she was at college with. The 'Don't you want me' track being particularly meaningful in an unkind way .... I got the last laugh (he was no good, and the next boyfriend got her pregnant) so I wasn't anything like the bad influence her parents thought I might be. Have seen her about twice since. Think I'm still a bit sweet on her....  :wub: 

 

"Memories" (daa-dee-daa-dee-deda).  -_-

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My local citizens had a nice sighting of a man in heels yesterday! Me... I was, as usual, wearing my 4.5 inch wedge boots under long cords to go round our local market, and got back to the car to find a very flat back tyre. Nothing for it but to change the wheel in full view of everyone with my heels plainly visible to everyone. No comments, but then I never have. I even had a very kind guy stop and help me. I'm rather glad I wasn't in stilettos, even if only because I'd have found it more difficult to use the wheel wrench...

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Bit of a longer story (apologies if you've read it elsewhere already.)

Would have been circa 1985 and the heyday of my wearing heels at clubs and balls. I didn't always go out dressed 'en femme' but it was more usual than unusual. My girlfriend and I got approached (in every sense) when I dressed up, not a whisper from anyone else when I went dressed as a man.

 

So we had left a club just off Charing Cross Road called Maitresse around 2am. I'd driven my car across Oxford Street, and the clutch cable snapped. I had to get out of the car and look under the bonnet at the bulkhead, and sure enough, the outer cable was lying loose. I would have been wearing a short PVC skirt and top, fishnet stockings, and 5½ heels. While looking under the bonnet, I got quite a few beep's, and one loud shout of 'oyh-oyh' from passing traffic. No offers of help though.  I'd learned how to drive without a clutch years before, having experienced it with a 1972 3.0 Capri. Not so easy starting off in gear with a smaller 4 cylinder, but it was a bit under-geared in first and second, so we got home. It's taken 31 years for me to wonder how I might have made it home, with no car and dressed as I was. :huh: :huh: I suppose an expensive cab ride, (£25 back then) and returning the following day with a new clutch cable....

 

In recent years when I used to go out in heels, I would be rather daring by taking no other shoes, once finding myself in the wrong place at the right time. I'd pulled into a disused road to have a pee. Unknown to me, a group of young people had arrived a bit earlier to start smoking an odd smelling tobacco. It seems someone who lived close by had called the police, who subsequently arrived, just as I was leaving having discovered I wasn't alone. I was told to stay put. Thinking I was likely going to be ordered out of the car at some stage, I carefully got myself de-shod. At the time, thinking it better to get out the car in socks, than get out wearing 4 inch heels. As it turned out, once a vehicle/name check was made, I was dismissed.  (Pheww.)

I'd like to say I still have that 'devil-may-care' attitude.... But 'work duties' means I have to go into homes occasionally where outdoor shoes aren't allowed, so I now carry a pair of black soft 'slipper' type shoes in the car at all times. At a push, dual purpose. ;) 

Not that anyone would know, but they too are a girls (slipper) shoe. ;) :D

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On 6/19/2016 at 7:21 PM, Russ in boots said:

My local citizens had a nice sighting of a man in heels yesterday! Me... I was, as usual, wearing my 4.5 inch wedge boots under long cords to go round our local market, and got back to the car to find a very flat back tyre. Nothing for it but to change the wheel in full view of everyone with my heels plainly visible to everyone. No comments, but then I never have. I even had a very kind guy stop and help me. I'm rather glad I wasn't in stilettos, even if only because I'd have found it more difficult to use the wheel wrench...

I recall a comment in another place from an American who disliked platform shoes and referred to them as 'jackstands'.   I doubt however that they could be used as such, much as it might be helpful in your situation.   :lol:    

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10 hours ago, FastFreddy2 said:

...

I would have been wearing a short PVC skirt and top, fishnet stockings, and 5½ heels. While looking under the bonnet, I got quite a few beep's, and one loud shout of 'oyh-oyh' from passing traffic. No offers of help though.  I'd learned how to drive without a clutch years before, having experienced it with a 1972 3.0 Capri. Not so easy starting off in gear with a smaller 4 cylinder, but it was a bit under-geared in first and second, so we got home. It's taken 31 years for me to wonder how I might have made it home, with no car and dressed as I was. :huh: :huh: I suppose an expensive cab ride, (£25 back then) and returning the following day with a new clutch cable....

I admire your bravado and wish I'd been there (to ogle rather than help) but it would have been way past my bedtime!

Did you drive all the way home stuck in one gear?   Or is there some technique for gear-changing sans clutch in fairly modern cars?   (I know about double-declutching in older cars, although that surely requires an operative clutch?   And I have no idea how one actually performed the task.)

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1 hour ago, Puffer said:

I admire your bravado and wish I'd been there (to ogle rather than help) but it would have been way past my bedtime!

Did you drive all the way home stuck in one gear?   Or is there some technique for gear-changing sans clutch in fairly modern cars?   (I know about double-declutching in older cars, although that surely requires an operative clutch?   And I have no idea how one actually performed the task.)

I think these days, "clubs" (any) don't often open their doors before 10.30pm and the night doesn't actually get going until at least an hour later. Back then, 'kicking out' was pretty universally 2 a.m. Now, 4 a.m. is more typical, and 6 a.m. not unknown. Venues stay open as long as people spend money at the bar. After that, any point in staying open - stops. When you can charge £5/£6 for a small bottle of water, you don't even have to sell alcohol to make good money from your 'guests'. :huh:

 

The 'double-declutching' was a technique used in heavy lorries and race cars that used straight cut gears. Modern vehicles have synchro-mesh gears, which self-align at mis-matching speeds. (If my 40 year old memory of the technology serves.) The idea of the let the clutch up in neutral (the double bit) and revving the engine, was to get as many parts turning at the right speed as possible.... Didn't always work .. ;) :D

 

Driving without a clutch is simple but potentially dangerous for a gear box. A "power" test I read about in a performance car mag', was to start your car in 4th (no fifth gear back then) and see if you could actually drive away in gear. My 3 litre Capri could be started in 4th gear, foot off the clutch, could pick up speed and I could drive away. Not a clever thing to do many times, but I know I did it at leave twice. I believe the version of gearbox I had, was originally made for a transit. One day, I broke the (crap) gear stick. That was interesting ....

So driving with no clutch .... Start off in gear, 2nd If I remember. Changing up is/was no bother. Getting back down a bit more difficult. "You" have to slip out of the gear being used, and lightly touch the accelerator to get the engine revs up. A gentle (and I mean gentle) bit of pressure on the lower gear, will usually let the lever slip into place when gear and engine speeds match-ish. This downward gear change can be practised in modern cars too!  The nasty bit is stopping. IF you time it right, slipping into neutral -braking- and switching off the engine when stopped is the right way to go. Engine off, into second, ignition key at the ready .... Bear in mind, I was travelling out of London at 3-4 a.m.** during a time when there wasn't a set of traffic lights on every junction, and there was nothing like the congestion there is now. Nor were we living the 24/7 lifestyle we have these days. I probably wouldn't have seen another 30 vehicles going my direction, all the 20 -ish mile route home. I wouldn't have needed to stop at roundabouts either. Apart from having to stop say 5 or 6 times, it wouldn't have been anything like the challenge it might seem. I would have been barely 30 at the time, and still spent a lot of time working on cars, it would have seemed an inconvenience (to me then) at worst.   

 

Nerd Trivia: Though technology has moved on a bit since 1985. Most cars back then had historically used hydraulic actuated clutch levers. "Cable" was fairly new, and I can tell you from experience, pretty unreliable if you drove a Ford. It was the only time I snapped one, but I changed several frayed ones over the course of my 'car enthusiast' years.  

 

** Just to put those times into perspective .... "Once" and I definitely mean the once - after returning home from that club (so around 3 a.m.) I got my girlfriend to drop me off about half a mile from our flat, and the other side of our town centre. So I walked, dressed as described above, through my own pedestrianised town centre at 3 - 3.30 a.m. to get home. Didn't see another person the whole 10-15 minute walk. Was truly surreal. I always drove home from London, so I would have been perfectly sober. I don't do drugs either, so fully compos mentis though a little 'high' from spending 6 hours 'dressed' and mixing with people like it was perfectly normal. Boy George, Culture Club, 'Marilyn' were seen daily in the newspapers and heard on the radio all the time. They were very androgynous times so I wasn't as 'out there' as it might seem now. Plus looking back, I had what I could only describe as an 'enviable' shape. A slim body with 28" waist that could easily get me into a size 10 or large size 8. I don't even know a woman that size now .... :rolleyes: So less 'daring' and more showing off really. ;) :D

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Interesting and informative, Freddy - but I don't relish attempting to drive and change gear clutchless.  My first car was a 1960 model and had syncro, but I believe that quite a few family saloons in the 1950s still lacked it and required double-declutching - a Rover belonging to a colleague comes to mind.

Did you drive (on that or other occasions) whilst wearing the 5.5" stilettos?   Presumably you did or you would have had some other footwear to change into whilst publicly inspecting the clutch cable.   If one is tall and in heels, it can be quite tricky to wriggle into position for driving with knees fouling the steering wheel.

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7 hours ago, Puffer said:

Did you drive (on that or other occasions) whilst wearing the 5.5" stilettos?   Presumably you did or you would have had some other footwear to change into whilst publicly inspecting the clutch cable.   If one is tall and in heels, it can be quite tricky to wriggle into position for driving with knees fouling the steering wheel.

The answer is yes.

Once 'dressed' I considered myself 'in costume', and unlike the women of today, back then you wore your shoes from one end of the evening to the other. Even now I try to start my day/evening out, in heels if possible. It gets my ankle and foot 'prepared' for sustained use in that position. I had a visit to the West End some 16 days ago, putting on my heels for the first time during the day immediately prior to leaving the parked car. The shock to my ageing ankles might have been obvious to everyone ... :rolleyes:

Some hours later, I was walking 'like a pro', but disappointed it had taken a good hour to loosen up my ankles. I had driven Mrs Freddy's car, and didn't want to move the seat position to accommodate my heels. (Not worth the grief of leaving the seat in the wrong position.) 

The only pair of shoes I own I distrust while driving, are my trainers. If the soles get wet, they like to slip off the control pedals as if greased. Since I don't wear platforms, driving in a heel seems no different to driving in flats with the pedals further away than is (usually) comfortable. Research suggests heels can affect response times, and this might be the case, but every 'bump I've had has had me wearing flats ... ;)

 

At the time of my breaking the clutch cable back in '85, if I had twotted the gear box, it would have taken a day to replace, so it would have seemed like inconvenience rather than the disaster it would be now. My mate's family had (and still owns I think) a car scrap yard. I had ramps, access to a dry garage. Brother in the trade ... And experience.

NOTHING could be as hard as demounting and remounting that 3 litre gear box, something I had done some 10 years earlier. I remember well, using the 'usual' procedure of pushing the box away from the clutch assembly and letting it drop onto me when the drive spigot was away from the clutch plate 'tongues'. Not so with that Transit box. Pulled it out thinking I could rest it on my chest before laying it on the garage floor. Nope. Laid it on my chest .... and couldn't move. Literally, pinned down by the bloody gearbox. :huh: Luckily for me (as breathing was almost impossible) my brother was on hand to pull it off me. Yes, I certainly knew how to live it up back then! :D

 

Today, I had one attempt at changing up without a clutch. Didn't do very well, so I won't be trying that again. I don't know if front wheel drive affects the technique, or the lack of practice during the past 30 years has me unable to do it again ... And unlike 30 years ago, twottng a gearbox in modern cars is a four figure expense, and one I choose to avoid! Despite the (modern day) costs of it, a call out to a recovery company would be considerably cheaper. :( Not that I expect to experience the same problem these days, as cars and their components are much better designed than they were. :)     

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I am obliged for the info, Freddy.   Again I admire your bravado, and suppleness.   But I was at a complete loss when you spoke of a gearbox being 'twotted' (and thence of 'twotting'); terms which have not permeated the protective lughole barriers installed in my corner of the Empire.    And you may imagine my surprise (and indeed horror) when I Googled said terms and found that they appear to relate to another activity altogether.   Is this a change of meaning due to some cunning linguistic shift, or what?

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I found two 'appropriate' references to the word .....

First >> twot <<

Second >> twot <<

Twotted = twatted = broken. (Useless.) Also used in Hertfordshire/Bedfordshire/Essex and Lundun to replace "fucked". Example: "The gearbox was twotted" parsed, reads as "The gearbox was fucked." It would mean 'broken beyond further use.' Nothing to do with sex, or anyone's private parts, but a phrase usable in mixed company or in front of children that would not cause raised eyebrows.  B)

My apologies for using parochial terms. ;)

 

And preempting a further query regarding "twat" .... From Wiki >> here <<

Although sometimes used as a reference to the female genitalia (a usage that predominates for the word in North American English), the word twat is more often used in various other ways:

  • As a derogatory insult, a pejorative meaning a fool, a stronger alternative to the word twit – 'He can be a complete twat'[7] (frequent in British and Commonwealth English, and not unheard of in North America)
  • Informally as a verb meaning to hit someone[2] (a British usage)

In August 2008, the publisher of a children's book, My Sister Jodie by Jacqueline Wilson, decided to reprint the word twat as twit in future editions of the novel so as not to offend readers or their parents after receiving three complaints[8]

 

It's inferred use in the phrase "the gearbox was twatted", the gearbox became useless. 

 

 

Edited by FastFreddy2

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I am obliged for the learned explanation, Freddy.   I am familiar with 'twat' (pronounced to rhyme with 'that') in its several usages.   However, I do not really accept that it is synonymous with 'twot' simply because it may be (mis)pronounced as such (to rhyme with 'hot').   The two words should be kept distinct in both pronunciation and usage.

By extension, the concept of someone being a 'twot' (= 'total waste of time') could be applied to an object that is useless as a result of damage or some other form of deterioration.   So, alien to me as it is, I can just about see how the peasantry in your part of the realm might regard a ruined gearbox as being 'twotted'.   (Contrariwise, ladies in my area do not 'come' as a result of a stimulating sexual experience - they prefer to 'arrive'.)

I would add that I believe your last sentence contains a solecism; the use was 'implied',rather than 'inferred'.   (But, as the reader infers what the writer implies, either may be understood here and I will not award a detention on this occasion.) 

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1 hour ago, Puffer said:

By extension, the concept of someone being a 'twot' (= 'total waste of time') could be applied to an object that is useless as a result of damage or some other form of deterioration.   So, alien to me as it is, I can just about see how the peasantry in your part of the realm might regard a ruined gearbox as being 'twotted'.   (Contrariwise, ladies in my area do not 'come' as a result of a stimulating sexual experience - they prefer to 'arrive'.)

I would add that I believe your last sentence contains a solecism; the use was 'implied',rather than 'inferred'.   (But, as the reader infers what the writer implies, either may be understood here and I will not award a detention on this occasion.) 

In the Noof Lundun vernacular .... "Whatever". ;) :P :D

You are right, of course, but such a common mistake (my subsequent research reveals) I too am going to forgive myself the error. (Though I will endeavour to be more careful with the use of these particular words in future.) B)

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