Friday, January 27, 2006

Dr Marten I presume? - Not forgetting Time Travel

Today I did something I rarely do – went into a shop. Not only that, I did something far rarer – I went to buys shoes! Obviously I have a cupboard full of pink kitten heels, sling backs, sturdy matronly brogues and so on but today I went for DMs. As it happens, shoe fetishists everywhere, in real life I have my newish DMs that I wear everyday, my split DMs that I don’t really wear any more but haven’t thrown out yet and the old DMs in the garage (do I have a garage? – ooh yes!) I also own a pair of slippers (where I keep my pipe) and some ‘classic’ Adidas trainers covered in paint (where I keep my paint, obviously - do try to keep up Portia, the squirrels went hours ago). Someone somewhere would pay a fortune for them (classic trainers, not inconvenient squirrels), but then there were no takers on my Wedding Present memorabilia…so perhaps not.

I paid extra for the time travel. I’m miffed that DMs are not made in Northampton anymore but they still sell them in Bradford. Years ago Bradford was were you went to buy DMs – from working men’s boot shops rather than shoe shops before they realised they were fashionable and doubled the price.

Anyway, Mister Boot is a shop on the Leeds Road Bradford. There’s hardly room to get in, there’s a single wooden chair (which takes up most of the standing room) and a calor gas fire (sorry, I guess that’s Calor Gas “TM” or something with a royalty cheque in the post – One Queen Mum, dead but visited East End in Blitz, 10 guineas, no pence). A man in a blue sweatshirt and thick glasses works there. There’s a back room full of clocks. Obviously some kind of portal to the 70’s, stuff hanging from the ceilings, ladders, stuff to stand on, you know.

The idea here is that these DMs were going to be so damned cheap that I’d be laughing all the way to the betting shop to put 50 pee on the day the soles should split on two pairs. Thereby no need to shop for 2 years (did Matalan a few months ago for £3 trousers, underpants, socks – going up! Ba, ba ba ba ba etc.)

Unfortunately they were £55 which is a biggie for a budget shopper – and more expensive that t’internet. So, what do I do? Say “that’s far too much old fashioned man in old fashioned shop that smells of old fashioned hardware shop (with some stress on leather goods and shoes in particular, if not shoes and boots exclusively)”, “I will not pay that much”, “why they’re not even made in Northampton and you are not, repeat not in a fashionable town, nor even the more fashionable part of a non-fashionable town, I’m leaving, good day rapscallion won’t-be-here-for-long retailer man”?

So anyway, I bought these DMs. Bit steep.

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