at9

Seems this sort of thing isn't confined to the UK

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/El-Al-slammed-for-new-high-heels-rule-for-flight-attendants-406065

I've certainly seen stewardesses on Virgin change from high heels to flats soon after takeoff.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-36264229

"A London receptionist was sent home from work after refusing to wear high heels, it has emerged.

Temp worker Nicola Thorp, 27, from Hackney, arrived at finance company PwC to be told she had to wear shoes with a "2in to 4in heel".

When she refused and complained male colleagues were not asked to do the same, she was sent home without pay.

Outsourcing firm Portico said it set the uniform rules for staff supplied to PwC but would now review guidelines."

I wonder what they would have said if a man had turned up for a comparable job wearing heels:)

Not sure about the exact legal position in the UK but it's running very close to sexual discrimination. In any case the outsourcing company has been made to look stupid in public.Not sure why PwC should be outsourcing that kind of job anyway except for temporary cover. If I was running a company I'd want the public/client facing jobs to be directly employed.

You are most unlikely to get the police interested in bringing fraud charges. Their usual reaction would be be to say that it's a civil matter which you are free to pursue in the County Court system.

https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

I've just looked and you're right. They used to have virtually every style in EU43/UK9, now nothing with heels, only flats. I think some of their EU42/UK8 may fit my feet - I have a pair of EU43/UK9 ankle boots that need an insole.

@ALexC94 if you're a UK7 then you've got the whole world of women's footwear available to you. A lot of guys will be jealous.

I'm UK9/EU43 which is a bit limiting but I'm vastly better off than those with big feet.

i think those Demonias go up to UK9. I have a pair of high wedge platform Demonia boots, nominally a women's style, and these go up to UK9.

His workshop is on an industrial estate in Enfield though the google map on the website shows a different location, possibly his old workshop. Not too far from me so if I'm over that way I'll take a look.

The registered office is very near me in a road that's full of Victorian terraced houses. Looks like the address is of an accountant who has his office at his house. http://accountants.b99.co.uk/finchley/p-r-s-accoutancy-and-taxation-services/

It's impossible to say whether CK is dishonest or overwhelmed. In either case I wouldn't be prepared to place and order with his company.

When you google Fabulously Fetish it comes up as Cos K, wholesalers of shoes. The address is a private house, less than 5 miles from where I live.

Is it true that Cos K was part of The Little Shoe Box, when that was trading years ago in Holloway Road?

GITF could be a typo (T is next to Y on the keyboard) or the pleasantly archaic: "Google Is Thy Friend". Or you could just use the rather crude: "JFGI".

TBG's advice on sizing is OK for the US but doesn't apply to the UK or Europe. In these areas, at least in theory, you should be using the same size as our normal men's shoes. As always in practice there's a fairly wide variation. I'm nominally UK9/EU43 but I've got a pair of EU43 Next ankle boots that need insoles. I've also tried UK9/EU43 woman's shoes that have been too small and some UK8/EU42 that have fitted OK.

EU42 is supposed to be equivalent to UK8 which is roughly US mens 9 or 9.5.

The LFF website is still there and comes up as first hit on your search but I can assure you it hasn't been around for quite a few months and I doubt it will ever return.

There is a new-ish and much smaller event called London Below in Hackney. Unless you know otherwise LFF seems to be no more.

I've been to the London Alternative Market a number of times though I doubt I'll be going tomorrow. Since HHP is not a fetish site I won't give the URL but it's easy to find.

Essential details:

Market is 1200 to 1800. Afterparty starts at 1900.

It's at Revolution Bar, 140 Leadenhall Street, EC3

Entrace is £5 earlybird, £6 from 2pm

Afterparty is £5 if you have bought a ticket for the market, otherwise £10

Next one is tomorrow, 3rd Jan. Nearly always 1st Sunday of the month.

If you decide to drive in, street parking is free in The City on Sunday but there is very little that's close to the venue. I would park in Lloyds Avenue, about 5 to 10 minutes walk.

No, I didn't stare at the woman trying them on. That would be rude. The assistant had obviously seen me looking at the boots he was carrying.

Saw the woman starting to put them on but left the shop well before she had finished.

Was up in central London the other day with a female friend. We looked in a few shoe shops but neither of us bought anything. In Aldo, Covent Garden, a male assistant was bringing these for a woman to try: http://www.aldoshoes.com/uk/en_UK/women/boots/over-the-knee-boots/c/139/ADEASIEN/p/44052697-91

As he walked passed me he asked, jokingly I think, if I'd like to try a pair. I said I didn't think he'd have them in my size. Unfortunately I was right. In my experience Aldo footwear runs small. They equate UK9 to EU42 (EU43 is the normal conversion for UK9) and their UK9 things I've tried in the past feel more like UK7 to UK7.5

Look up Sumptuary Laws. Very much about keeping the top people above the lower orders.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law

Here's the link to the Toronto museum's "men in heels" exhibition: http://www.batashoemuseum.ca/standing-tall/

Let's start with the coronation of King Charles II, wearing what look like 3" heels. He became king of England in 1660, at a time when a man wearing heels would have been showing off his high status.

I'm not convinced that the expression "well heeled" refers to the height of the heel. Though "down at heel" seems to originate from somebody so poor they cannot afford to have their shoes repaired.

Found in local charity shop at the weekend. Not for me (I'm UK9) but my partner is UK4. She doesn't often wear heels so they are very much for fun at home. Carefully though, because those spikes are hard and fairly sharp and neither of us is a serious masochist. She certainly loves the extra height and the way her legs look in them.

As far as I can tell, these are genuine Jeffrey Campbell boots.They are certainly well made with nice leather footbed and lining.

Sizing is erratic in my experience. In the UK and EU sizing systems male and female sizes are meant to be equivalent, unlike in the US. In practice there is wide variation, even within a brand let alone between brands. The only safe method is trying them on.

For example I'm nominally UK9/EU43 and regularly wear my Doc Martens "Una" clogs in that size. All other DM heels I've tried in that size have been too small. I know clogs can be more forgiving in size than boots but the difference here was quite significant. In men's shoes I'm usually UK9 but some UK8 are fine while occasionally I've had to go up to UK10. Next do lots of women's shoes in EU43/UK9. They run quite big on me though their UK8/EU42 tend to be a bit tight.

Sometimes the problem is width. Women's shoes are usually narrower than men's. Then you go up a size (harder when you're UK9) and find they're too long.

Dbert, I've sent you a private message.

You're right that I shied away from the term "latent heat". Of evaporation in this case.

I'd overlooked the case of being immersed in water. The cooling is then by conduction and convection, not evaporation. Water is a mediocre thermal conductor so I suspect that convection is the main culprit. A wetsuit works by trapping a thin layer of water next to the body. Since there is minimal convection this reduces heat loss dramatically. Of course the good thermal insulation properties of neoprene help too.

Conduction of heat and conduction of heat are not necessarily related. For example diamond is an excellent electrical insulator and superb thermal conductor. Some metal oxides such as alumina and beryllia are in the same category. I'm struggling for examples of good electrical conductors that are also poor thermal conductors. If only because most good electrical conductors are metals. There are some electrically conductive polymers and also thermoelectric materials like bismuth telluride. Not exactly good electrical conductors but definitely not insulators either.

I rather liked the smell of benzene** in 6th form chemistry. Known carcinogen even back then. I'm almost 60 and no ill effects so far.

**Benzene, the cyclic C6H6 compound, not benzine, sometimes used for various fluids including petrol

Pure water is a very poor conductor of electricity but most water is not pure. Hypothermia is nothing to do with conduction of either heat or electricity. When any substance evaporates it absorbs heat. So as water evaporates it absorbs heat leaving whatever it was on colder. For a dramtic demo of this look look at propane cylinders covered in ice when in use. The liquid propane inside evaporates into propane gas with associated cooling.

Correct to say that efficiency doesn't matter if the technology is cheap enough and you have enough space. For large scale solar the most important parameter is usually cost per installed peak kilowatt. The sunshine is free. Just need to be sure that maintenance costs are also low.

True to say the sun is always shining somewhere. Getting huge amounts of leccy between continents is nowhere near solvable at present. Geopolitics is a big reason why Desertec is likely to fail.

The reason you added salt was to make the water conduct electricity. Pure water is a very poor conductor.In fact electrical conductivity is used to meaure the purity of water. As well as electrolysis there's a lot of work going on to mimic photosynthesis to get electricity directly from sunlight. None of it very successful yet.

There are several grand schemes to harness solar energy on a huge scale without the trouble of going into space. Look up Desertec for example. Technically feasible, politically difficult. If you covered a relatively tiny part of the Sahara or Arizona with solar power systems (photovoltaic and/or solar thermal) you'd have ample energy for the world.  Apart from the politics and the logistics of getting the energy to the point of use the problem as you rightly say is storing the energy when the sun isn't shining. There are various systems for doing this such as flow batteries, compressed air in caverns, molten salts. None is quite ready for mainstream use yet but there's nothing that a bit of intensive R&D can't solve. Along with the will to do it.

We honestly don't know what happens if you leak siginificant amounts of H into the atmosphere. It may react harmlessly with O to make H2O. Or there may be unforeseen effects. Concentration in air is about 1ppm. Free hydrogen tends to escape into space.

"... but the hydrogen car is effectively a battery car.  Just like other battery systems, the pure hydrogen holds potential energy.

That is equally true of a petrol car, a steam locomotive etc. In all these cases there is stored energy of some kind on board the vehicle. But not of a tram (trolley in US), or electric train where there is no significant stored energy on board the vehicle.

The main advantage of hydorgen fuelled vehicles is that there are no nasty emissions local to the vehicle. If the hydrogen can be produced from clean energy sources then the whole supply chain is clean. Otherwise it's simply transferring the pollution to somewhere else, where it may or may not be better controlled.

Electric hybrid vehicles are somewhat different because they utilise the ability of electric motors to work efficiently in a stop/start enviroment such as city driving. The associated internal combustion engine can then be run either under optimal conditions or not at all. They give no advantage under motorway cruising conditions since that is where an IC engine is operating efficiently anyway. In fact there's a disadvantage because you're lugging around the extra weight of batteries and motors. It's hardly surprising that many London minicab drivers use a Toyota Prius hybrid