xaphod

Nice shoes .... hate the plumbing. BTW, is there an emoticon for 'tongue in cheek' ? Xa

Hmmm Some of the ex-squaddie types that I associate with running ex-military vehicles and communication equipment have decidedly non-open minds. I will not tell one of them because he has already made it it pretty plain that he barely tolerates a couple of the transgenders in the clean-room at work. The other, an ex-territorial and ex-solicitor is more open minded. He and his wife are trying to make time in their schedule to drive 200 miles to see me and stay for a few days for the local music festival. I now have far too many heels to hide so they will be told that I cross-dress on occasion, and they are liable to find female attire around the house. Xa

A couple of people have said to me that they haven't heard a cuckoo this year. Neither had I until yesterday. It has been suggested that migratory birds are having greater problems crossing the Sahara which is getting wider due to Global Warming. Anyhow, hearing a cuckoo very close by, especially this late in the year surprised me. I looked out into the garden to see a pair of blackbirds fussing around a large bird right at the top of a leylandii tree at the far end of the garden. "It can't be," thought I, but I fished out the binoculars and, blow me down, it was a cuckoo. The blackbirds, obviously the erstwhile surrogate parents, rapidly lost interest in their offspring when it continued to make definitely non-blackbird noises over the next 20 minutes. .... made my day (hang on, I've said this somewhere else recently ! ) Xa

Didn't a clip of you and another member, that someone took while you were touring a museum, show up on "YouTube" a while back?

.... yes it was at a World Heelmeet a couple of years ago.

Airwolf, another, and myself went to the British Museum for a quick look.

Airwolf asked to see the most evocative exhibit as he was time limited, so we went to the Rosetta Stone which is now in a case. When I was a kid it just stood on a plinth. I remember my mum, an amateur historian, telling me how Jean-France Champollion deduced that the 'cartouche', which she traced with her finger, contained the phonetic characters for a person's name and referred this to the early Coptic version.

Xa

Due to a foulup on the tube (subway), I had to use a route that I wasn't familiar with. While looking at the map, some Americans politely asked, "Do you mind if we snap your photo?" I gave them the evil eye for a second to determine if they were media types, but, seeing that their camera was a 'point and click' type, I thought this unlikely. "No problems," said I. They were quite happy with 3 shots of me in my long leather coat, spiky knee-high boots tucked into women's leather jeans, and an androgyneously patterned t-shirt, topped off with a hat from a gentlemans hatters that cost more than the rest of the ensemble ! .... made my day ! Xa

Unfortunately it doesn't go away when you're retired.

There's a question in life that no man or woman should ask themselves. There is a facile self-delusion which most people accept as an answer and bury the fact that they're just kidding themselves. Prompted by my making an arse of myself with a woman I've known for a while now on Saturday night, I watched FAR too much TV on Sunday.

I would have gone for a road trip on the motorbike, but the weather was rubbish, so now I'm faced with all the jobs I had planned to do on Sunday !

Here's where I was planning to go.

http://www.picturesofengland.com/England/Essex/Dedham/pictures/thumbnails

Xa

I've always found that, provided you make no comment and attract attention to yourself, all that happens is that other people about the place look at those making most noise, namely the plonkers in the car. The others will usually be thinking something along the lines of:- 'what are those idiots in the car making a racket about ..... oh, just leave us in peace ! ' Xa

Hi, Jeff, Someone's up pretty early. Xa

Just looked through some of the comments, some partially homophobic. Does anyone fancy blitzing their comments section ??? Heh Heh. Xa

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/men/article7133523.ece

..... a bit spurious, but, I suppose, balanced.

Xa

Well done also. Mine was in 1972 riding around the block with the examiner hiding behind cars and jumping out.

Al

ALL DRIVERS ARE BLIND AND THICK, UNTIL PROVEN DIFFERENT

Congrats ..... there's nothing quite like riding a bike (except, maybe sailing a boat) to give you pleasure when life is just plain shitty !

BTW, the above mantra was repeated regularly when I did a spell of dispatch riding in London. A colleague who started at the same time as me was in his wooden box 3 weeks later !

Now a little story about passing bike tests:-

As with alsheels, both me and my brother did the riding around the Town Hall with the examiner hiding behind cars to watch you. In brother's case he wasn't required to do the emergency stop. Why? ..... because a parked car driver opened his door without looking behind. Bro screeched to a halt and proceeded to make allegations regarding the pillock's parentage and mental capacity.

Fortunately the examiner witnessed this and, explaining that he wouldn't be reqiring an emergency stop, said,

"oh, BTW, I don't think your comments to the driver are part of the Highway Code."

Xa

Hi Cinammon,

What a wonderful word 'twerp' is!!

[

Here's another quick plug for

www.oed.com

..... the definitive work for English as it is used. As I've said before, the Oxford English Dictionary is trying to lose its stuffy image and, IMHO, doing reasonably well.

TWERP:-

A despicable or objectionable person; an insignificant person, a nobody; a nincompoop.

1925 FRASER & GIBBONS Soldier & Sailor Words 292 Twerp, an unpleasant person. 1934 J. O'HARA Appointment in Samarra iv. 87 ‘And what a husband.’ ‘Exactly!.. That little twirp.’ 1936 WODEHOUSE Laughing Gas xxv. 265 You're simply a lot of low twerps who kidnapped me in order to cash in. 1944 J. R. R. TOLKIEN Let. 6 Oct. (1981) 94 He lived in O[xford] at the time when we lived in Pusey Street (rooming with Walton, the composer, and going about with T. W. Earp, the original twerp). 1945 [see RAT n.1 3a]. 1955 E. POUND Section: Rock-Drill xcv. 105 Among all these twerps and Pullizer sponges no voice for the Constitution, No objection to the historic blackout. 1957 R. CAMPBELL Portugal 87 T. W. Earp (who gave the English language the word twirp, really twearp, because of the Goering-like wrath he kindled in the hearts of the rugger-playing stalwarts at Oxford, when he was president of the Union, by being the last, most charming, and wittiest of the ‘decadents’). 1960 S. BARSTOW Kind of Loving I. iv. 91 If she turns me down I'll look more of a twerp than ever. 1973 B. BROADFOOT Ten Lost Years xxvii. 309 The R. B. Bennetts of Canada and that despicable little twerp Mac. 1980 National Times (Austral.) 21 Dec. 30/3 Kendig's former boss..is a twerp. His offices contain a gallery of framed photographs of [himself]: there he is with John Wayne, with Nixon, [etc.].

OK, OK, too much info, I know, but, for me, it's nice to know !

Xa

What a pity nobody mentioned Miranda Hart, the other woman on the show. She's 6'1" and not the skinniest girl on the block. She's a comedian, and from what I've heard of her, I quite enjoy her work. She's not pretty, so she uses her brain instead ! Xa

Good news and bad news ..... The good news is that we have got rid of 'the triumph of spin and image over substance' party. The bad news is that we now have the 'we are of the class who are born to rule you oiks' party. I'll grab an unrelated part of Cameron's biog which says that he has experience of industry ..... yes in accountancy and banking, before he bailed out to start climbing the party ranks. Remind me, what caused this financial armageddon ? Now it seems like Cameron is is a control freak to outfreak Blair or Brown. We know that the modern media will penetrate anything but a flawless presentation. Cameron, in his role as a Public Relations type excels in this. Expect that during his rise to power in the Conservative party all dissention has been removed or sidelined. Those who might have aspired to power, such as Hague, have been given plum positions to keep them rewarded. I am an exponent of the creation of 'added value'. In simple terms, real value is created by doing real work such as taking a piece of metal, bashing it and making a car which is of greeater worth than the ingredients. The creation of some financial instrument only has the added value that you can generate by talking up its worth to a gullible purchaser who, himself, thinks he can talk up the worth some more to sell to some other gullible purchaser. When everybody realises that the instrument is based on a falling value asset then the whole scheme goes belly up. Yes, people make money, they get bonuses, they buy houses, the Government takes some tax out of their salary. The appearance of business and prosperity is there, but the substance is just hot air, talk designed to flatter the avarice of the gullible. Is Cameron an 'added value' man? On the basis of his background he has NO CLUE how to run a manufacturing business. He may talk about revitalising British Industry. There may be some money for manufacturing start ups. As with such previous initiatives, the money will last just as long a the initiative generates headlines and makes the Government look good. When the initiative is yesterdays news and money is needed for a new glitzy headline project and just at the time the manufacturing initiative is getting into its stride and needing continuous, if not expanding support, money will be siphoned off for something new and the old initiative will wither on the vine. In all, I see nothing new here. Thatcher might have got the UK out of the last Socialist mire, but she had the resource of North Sea Oil to sell. We now have nothing. The cupboard is bare. I feel a terrible sense of forebodeing. Xa

They have style and, providing they aren't too narrow, you should be able to walk all day in them. Good choice. Xa

You should know what it's like to to feel vulnerable or intimidated by other males in a public place. I think it's a good idea.

Yes, in heels I behae differently on public transport. On the tube (US = subway) I normally check the people in the carriages as the train stops. If I see a bunch of oiks in one carriage, I'll choose the next one.

You need your brain in gear when heeling, just in case.

Xa

http://www.union.ic.ac.uk/scc/iq/

.... boy, do I wish this group was around when I was at IC.

If, as a fresher (freshman US ?), you present yourself as androgyneous, the other students will have no other frame of reference for your persona.

All I will say is dress elegantly. The last thing you need to look like is a dirty scruffy student in jeans and t-shirt with a pervy pair of heels.

As a suggestion, if you have the figure for it, try a pair of girls jeans with a slightly feminine embroidered pattern. If you're up for it, make sure your fingernails are looking good and use clear nail varnish.

The whole idea is to blur the boundaries of your sexuality so that the heels don't seem incongruent.

If all goes belly up and you have had enough of people taking the mickey, then you can always tone down the eccentricity for day-to-day attire. This still leaves you option of heeling on relatively rare occasions when you need to heel.

BTW what subject are you studying?

Best wishes,

Xa

..... went there some years ago. They're all legit and above board and carry a reasonable selection in their warehouse. The lady who served us was fine about guys trying on heels. As I remember, she asked us to give her some advance warning of our visit and the shoes we wanted to try so that she could have the boxes ready and waiting for us. ..... all in all, nothing to worry about. Xa

I'll try and keep my vituperation in check but .....

The bunch of socialist loonies who have all but destroyed the country I once loved by the triumph of spin over substance are, hopefully, going to be out on their ear at the next election.

Unfortunately, we have the choice of a dour calvinistic Scot with a huge chip on his shoulder, or an Eton-educated toff who can't be trusted to lock up his bicycle properly, let alone run the country, for Prime Minister. (David Cameron chained his bike to a concrete bollard. The bollard was about 4 feet high, so the thief merely lifted the bike and chain clear of the bollard ! )

Neither of these worthies (ha ha ) have had any experience of industry (Chartered Engineer, me) and have never generated any added value in their life. Mr Brown's degree is in Economics, and seems to have been usefully employed in burying about £204 billion of debt in the 'Private Finance Initiative'. True, this has been used to build grand projects, but on terms favourable to developers who expect to reap handsome rewards for their invsetment over the next 30 years, rewards that pay much more interest on capital than would have had to be paid if the Government had issued bonds or gilts on the money markets as in the normal manner. The other chappie runs a Public Relations company; in other words a bunch of bullshit boys who con people, against their better judgement, into thinking that some enterprise is good for them, only for the people to find out too late that they've been swindled.

As an example of this, a young impressionable man (me), believed a certain Prime Minister who said,

"Join the Technology Army, and we'll see you straight."

Only later in life did I find that political pundits of the time used to joke:- How do you know if Harold Wilson is lying ..... easy, his lips move.

Even so, the impresssionable young man rose to be quite noted in a small rarefied circle in his profession. His contribution to added value was to be on the large team of Engineers in the UK and Europe who designed the GSM mobile phone system.

When I see these political wassocks organising my life, believe me, I have VERY little respect for them.

To quote Plato:

A man who does not involve himself in politics finds himself governed by his inferiors.

Xa

I'll re-iterate ..... If you avoid the stuff called 'black leathery' aka nasty plastic, you will find the quality stuff very pleasing. Unfortunately they don't do custom. Xa

Smudge.... In haste, I'm up for a London trip. Unfortunately it will have to be afternoon, but if you would like a guided tour, I feel a little silliness coming on. Drop me a PM. Xa

Hi all it just seemed a good idea to share whats been going on with myself this last two weeks.

On Wednesday the 13th i had some very very bad news. While i was working in London my mother sadly passed away. She was only 54 and had been ill for awhile but no1 had any idea this was going to happen

Hiline

Sorry to hear that HL. It's a real jolt when that happens. I've been there when my mum went in for a minor operation that went wrong. OK, I used to live about 200 miles away from my mum, but, checking my answerphone having returned home one evening, I was dismayed to hear that she was in intensive care having previously been fine and dandy earlier that day.

Cue one mad dash up the M1, but I arrived too late.

It's been 9 years now, but recounting it here still hurts.

My sympathies,

Xa

Shave 'em. I have tried the two pairs of tights ruse and it does work .... for a while. Eventually, with the movement of your legs realtive to the tights, your leg hairs work their way through the weave of the fabric and then stick out at all angles .... ridiculous or what ! Xa

Hi, Beeble,

Been a very long time.

I note your age is now 41 .... the last time we met, you seemed to be no more than a student just out of Uni !

....I hope life has been treating you well.

Xa

I bought these up in London when I met the guys on the 30th December.

http://www.kurtgeiger.com/online-shop/116181-kurt-geiger-wendy

.... to die for !

Xa