Shoes, and Strange Diseases

For the last three or four years I've got an enormous amount of wear out of a pair of black Berghaus trainers; our recent holiday was the last straw for them though, and as well as looking very tired their soles are both racing-slick smooth and starting to come away from the uppers. Time to get some replacements, perhaps a little smarter than trainers this time.

Now, I'm hardly a shoe connoisseur. But I do quite like Ecco; my smart shoes are by them, but they also do a wide range of more casual styles. bugshaw and I found a Cambridge shop stocking them at the weekend, but their range was rather limited and they were out of most of their stock in my size. Yesterday, though, I managed to get into London early enough to get to their main store on Oxford Street for a bit of a nose around.

I ended up getting two pairs: both black, one pair a bit smarter than trainers, and the other a bit more casual than my 'smart' ones. I've still got a pair of tan heavy-duty trainers for mildly muddy places, although I ought to get a proper pair of walking boots at some point (and better still, actually use them on some of those 'hill' things I hear are very popular these days).

After this bout of Retail Therapy, it was off to Belgravia and the Star pub for the monthly BSFA night. After admiring sbisson's NZ photos (looks like he and marypcb saw a bit more blue sky than we did) it was time to watch claire_weaver interviewing mevennen and Mark Roberts regarding the delightful Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases. Actually, I'm not sure that 'interview' quite sums it up, seeing as how mevennen and Mark got thoroughly Into Character, quickly followed by claire_weaver and indeed most of the audience. I would repeat some of the resulting one-liners, but will refrain on the grounds that they varied between tasteless, probably legally actionable and Gratuitously Not Safe For Work... (although mevennen, ahem, gives a taste here.) Good clean fun all around.