xaphod

FF is correct about trying to suppress your heely preference. I've tried a few times to be 'normal' and chucked out most of my shoes on occasions. As you can see, it didn't work! If your mom suggests you go to a counsellor (no doubt well paid), how about suggesting that the money would be better spent on MORE HEELS ! Tell us how you get on telling your mom.

I remember the effect of some serious use of acetone (in pints) in the more confined spaces of a GRP sailing boat. When I emerged into fresh air, I understood why kids like sniffing glue! Another thing to beware of, is that acetone is more inflammable than petrol (gasoline) !

Since the topic is much more general, I've removed the reference to teenagers.

FF, you seem to forget that Terayon's mom is most probably somewhere between OUR ages, with a fairly balanced approach to the advantages and disadvantages of the net. Even my old mum (bless her cotton socks) who was 79, had a more open attitude to the net, as soon as I showed her what it could do!

Terayon and Squirrelheels have problems at present, because their heel wearing is very restricted due to their living with parents. Both are 16 and, unless they are hoping to be allowed to wear heels openly at home, they may be forced to wait until they leave for University before they get more freedom. They face other pressures from their peer group. Personally, I think that the level of control exerted by teenagers on their peers rivals the control exerted by Queen's Regulations in the armed forces! When I think of the amount of flak I put up with for dressing differently, I would suggest that 90% originates from immature kids. I'm old enough, and confident enough in the existence of myself as an individual, to have the conviction to tell these people to 'go to hell', but our younger bretheren need as much help as possible. The following from Terayon is typical:- ---------------------------------------------------------------------- sadly, i havent gotten up the nerve to tell anyone about my passion for wearing womens heels = I dont know if I will ever be able to tell my mom, i think she would understand...but i wouldnt know how to approach it... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I don't have any 'sure fire' answers either, but one thing springs to mind, if you can persuade your parents to read the board and talk to us, we would certainly like to help. I just thought .... when you are surfing, maybe you could say "Mom, I think you ought to see this website I've been looking at for a while." This technique worked for me and Heather. Firefox can vouch for this, because he and I visited Heather before Christmas. ... and, as I have said, more than once on the other board, "If, through my efforts here, others can be spared some of the heely angst I suffered for 20 years, I will be happy." <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: xaphod on 2002-02-22 19:16 ]</font>

Whoops, sorry. I didn't realise that SQ had posted a very similar thread, virtually at the same time as me. After the initial rush of replies, could the moderators for this bit amalgamate the two threads? Ta, ...... x

I had a phone call from a friend whom I've known since '79. Along with the friendship of the years, Ruth and I have some tenuous business links. For most of last year, I used to visit wearing my 4" block heels and sometimes, leather trousers. Ruth was usually more interested in the trousers and didn't seem to notice the boots (she is a bit short-sighted). Just before Christmas I appeared in my new 5" Cyprianou boots with ordinary trousers. We went for a drink and a meal as normal, before returning to her place. Either she was being diplomatic, or short-sighted, but she apparrently didn't notice. Suitable liqueurs in hand, I asked her what she tought of my new boots. She was surprised at the height of the heel and even more amazed when I rolled my trouser leg up to reveal they were knee-high. I had come prepared with photos of my heel collection and launched into an explanation that there were the male equivalent of female shoe freaks. I noted that our usual comfortable companionship had suddenly become strained. Although the time passed pleasantly, it wasn't as enjoyable as usual. When I left, I thought that I would keep a low profile for a while to see what Ruth would do. There has been little contact in the meanwhile, except for business. Today Ruth phoned about business and mentioned that she had put a catalogue in the post for me. Surprised, I asked what the catalogue is about. "Shoes," Ruth replied, "I thought you might like that." More news as it happens.

OK, guys, I've really screwed up now. Out of the blue, I was phoned today by someone from a company I knew 10 years back. The upshot is that I've been invited to submit my CV (resume) for consideration. Now, way back then, I used to do my heely thing at various transvestite clubs in London, and my professional persona used to resemble that of Dilbert. To return to Dilbert mode is not an option, especially as I don't need the work, but I'd like to do this temporary contract for the fun value (plus the money which is always welcome). The question is, how do I dress if I'm invited for interview, the only criterion being that I WILL wear 4" block heeled boots? .... and if anyone says, 'wear a suit and tie', I'd rather put my head in a gas oven (it's a pity that we don't have real coal-gas anymore, with lashings of lovely carbon monoxide). <font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Firefox on 2002-02-21 01:14 ]</font>

From 'New Scientist', 'I wish' headline competition:- "Time Travel to be Discovered Next Year" "Meteorite Hits Lottery Winner" "Indestrooktibul Spel Chequer Virrus on Rimpoge" "Immune System Boosted by Real Ale"

Hi, Inga, Yes, it would seem that you're correct. I too admit that a shapely female leg in an elegant pair of shoes can occupy my gaze for longer than is politically correct. So what, I say, if such a thing gives me an innocent pleasure, then is there anything wrong in it? .... also what's sauce for the gander, is sauce for the goose. I know that some women like looking at guys' backsides. Personally, I don't understand the fascination, but if it makes the woman happy and does not offend, so what? I remember catching a bank manageress transfixed by the backside of an acquaintence, tall, thin, about 40, but with a boyish rear-end, at a party some years ago. Despite the fact we had little in common, we dated for a while, because her other fascination was for barrel-chested guys (in my experience a rarer predilection).

I'm thinking of going in a grey leather skirt that falls just below the knees, a pair of black tights and 4" courts. I guess the top will be white. This particular skirt has pockets in it, which are well useful. The skirt is cut fairly full, so that the bulge doesn't show. Unlike Dr Shoe, I'm not quite ready to bang a hole in my dick, put a metal ring in it, and tie the ring to my leg! Another thing with skirts that irritates me, is the fact that the hemline is a real sod to get level, tending to be lower at the front. Short of radical dressmaking, has anyone ideas for a quick fix? Whether or not you wear boots or courts depends on the shape of your legs, or if you wish to avoid the hassle of shaving them. I'm a classic 'nice legs, shame about the face' character, so I'll make the best of what I've got and shave 'em.

Saturday 27th April ??

In the middle of going through an old pile of junk, I came across this from a Reader's Digest of 1974. I don't have the quote to hand, so I'll parrotphrase ..... I was in a shoe shop next to an old lady with steel-grey hair, in conservative dress. She was trying on a pair of platform shoes in a most outrageous turquoise. A young girl entered and exclaimed, "Oh no, Gran, you're surely not buying those! " Sensing resistance, the young girl reasoned, "But you don't have anything that matches. What on earth are you going to wear them with? " "Defiance," Gran smiled.

From a production meeting for the European Space Agency, Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar Satellite .... 'Somebody must decide whether to decide to make a decision' An Engineer, traditionally thinking about something else at these bunfights, was so gobsmacked at this, that I a) woke up, and wrote it in my logbook for posterity.

I'm up for it. Should be nice for a pair of stils or courts.

Those who were on UK_heel_2002 will be aware of my habit of burying my nose in old (and sometimes new) books. I thought we could use this thread to post amusing quotes and anecdotes. I'll start with a piece from 'The Gentleman's Magazine, March 1731'. 'CASUALTIES' A poor Man was found hanging in a Gentleman's Stable at Bungay in Norfolk by a Person who cut him down, and returning for Assistance, left his Penknife behind him; the poor Man recovering cut his Throat with it and a River being nigh, jump'd into it, but Company coming, he was dragg'd out alive, and was like to remain so. (The punctuation is verbatim, but I have substituted modern 's' for the old-fashioned 'f' in the middle of words)

Hi, Vanessa, Yes I agree the old board was much more easy to assess 'at a glance'. It was simple .... if it's purple, you've read it.... if it's green, you havn't and if it's fallen off the bottom, it's out of date, in other words, 'self-purging'. I can see this setup is going to become very clogged after a year or so, and will need lots of moderator effort to keep it 'weeded' .... just like a garden which will grow so overgrown, you can no longer find the flowers. Charlie saved the interesting posts from the old board in notepad, as I did. BTW, I wonder if there would be interest in my reposting the 'Apsberger's' and the 'What do we do' threads? I also agree with your comments on access time. I also have an expensive third-world connection .... provided by British Telecom. PS .... the plural of Forum, according to my dictionary, is 'Fori'.

Suppleness comes from practice in wearing heels. You will see teenage girls with their first 3" heels 'clumping around'. Now, for some guys, they are starting their hh practice later in life, so they don't have the suppleness of young limbs. They will take longer to adjust. I've been wearing heels inside since I left home in 1974. Some of the early shoes were a little crazy, but, thankfully, the style settled down a bit. For outside wearing, I started out a little differently from most, wearing cowboy boots with a 2.5" heel when this was relatively mainstream style for guys. For another few years I wore Bertulli lifts, which rated about 3/10 compared with a decent pair of 4" blocks. So when I started wearing heels outside in the Autumn of '98, I already had a certain amount of practice and flexibility. A couple of days ago, wearing a pair of 4.5" spiky sachas, I was complimented on the way I walked in them, admittedly by a couple of shop assistants who were trying to sell me MORE shoes.

Here's where we can talk about hints and tips regarding the care of our favourite, and sometimes irreplaceable, shoes. What prompted this was that, in the stormy weather we're having, I got my Dolcis 'defines' soaking wet this evening. I love these boots nearly as much as the spiky sachas .... what's the best way to dry them out without them becoming somewhat inflexible, as my old motorbike boots used to do. The bike boots usually recovered after a liberal application of dubbin (waxy stuff for waterproofing), but this isn't quite the correct thing to do for fashion boots ! Suggestions please.

Sacha seems to be the shop whose shoes I wear outside most frequently, either the spiky sachas I wore at Lakeside and today, or the chisel heel/toe kneehighs I wore in London on UKheel (see reports)

This is just a brief note of my shopping today, primarily to get Beeblebrox another pair of cowboy boots from Sacha in High St Kensington. I'm getting possibly too good a reputation there because Karin, the young Swedish girl there, said ' Oh Hi, what are you buying now ?' as she emerged from the stockroom. BTW Bbrox, your boots will be on their way soon. I also decided to check out the bits of Oxford St we didn't cover on UKheel. Yes there were some sales in Selfridges, but generally couture names when my dinky size 39s are the BIGGEST they do (with one or two exceptions). While tasting the exotic parts of shoe-shop-ville I took a walk down South Molton Street and back up Bond Street. There were some fine styles available in the sales, but consideration has to be given to the 60% reductions (from a starting price of 250 pounds .... ouch ! ) I had some fun when I noticed a pair of shop assistants boggling at my spiky sachas as I passed on the opposite side of the street. Aha, thought I, I might check out their shop, Clio. They had some interesting boots and lots of courts (pumps) in various colours, which is good if you have had enough of boring black. The part I like is that, although I tried a size 39 which i could get a little finger between my heel and the shoe, they had a size 38.5 which fitted perfectly. This shows the value in getting sizing absolutely correct when choosing pumps. The downside to this is that the shops have to stock twice the number of boxes to cover a range of shoes, and the price reflects this. The guy in Clio also said that they go up to size 42 in some ranges, but less so in the sales. Sanity set in, so, despite temptation, my wallet emerged from these encounters unscathed. The day was rounded off with a trip to the Science Museum, recently free of charge, which is about the only thing our socialist Government have done for me lately. Personally, I think I'm paying for the whole damn Science Museum, because I must return to filling out my tax return AAAAGH .... upchuck !

Hey guys, how about sharing your heely shopping experiences here ..... good and bad

ADDENDUM Normally, after a party, for several weeks one finds peanuts emerging from undreamed-of hiding places and glasses parked impromptu. It seems that the last party was somewhat different, because I'm finding labels that say 'upper leather - lining fabric - sole manmade - size 7' behind the taps in the bathroom. Damn strange party this ! X PS .... Firefox, you forgot your Guinness glass. I'll keep it safe until we organise a transfer.

Hi, all, The house has just become very quiet now the guys have all left for different parts of the UK and Europe. There is some advantage, though .... I can now walk around my lounge without tripping over the 20, or so, pairs of heels on the floor ! Firefox arrived here late on Thursday night. After a liquid evening meal in my local, we started by staying up till 4am talking and doing damage to my whisky supplies. The next day we shared his car to Lakeside, arriving at 1325. It seems that Luc and Jeff had a clear run from Dover, and had been there for about one hour. Calv had picked up Beeblebrox at Stanstead airport and they had already met Luc and Jeff, so, in true fashion, the organisers arrived last. I'll leave it to the others to describe the fashion details, but suffice it to say, some of the public were a little confused when, after pointing out a guy wearing heels to their friends, they realised there was another, oh hell .... and another over there, what .... two more there .... WHAT'S HAPPENING? Excellent fun. The first shop we entered was Blisters, an independent with an elegant range of quality styles. Some sales racks remained and Luc found a pair of Mary Jane wedges, one of 3 pairs left. He tried the size 8s, but he thought these were too loose so bought the size 7s. Having realised they were a bit on the large side, Calv tried the 8s (he normally prefers a 9) and bought them. I have been looking for some light Summer shoes instead of ankle boots, but I had ignored the remaining pair of size 5s .... some damn woman must have bought the last size 6s. Realising there was a possibility the size 5s might fit, I whipped out my size 39 twinkletoes from their comfortable hiding place in the spiky Sachas to try on the last pair .... perfect fit. 'Could I have the other one please?', I said to the astounded assistant. Another sale was made. I bet the people in Blisters didn't think they were going to sell the last 3 pairs of Mary Janes to 3 guys in a matter of minutes. There was much more shopping, Luc remarking that every other shop had at least some shoes somewhere. The score for the day:- Luc - 3 pairs Calv - 2 pairs Xaphod - 1 pair Luc can tell the story of the bouncy running shoes .... they were just too much ! In the evening, on the way out to the M25 we stopped off at Brantano in Lakeside complex, before negotiating our way to Hampshire on a nasty rainy evening on the motorway (just like Euroheel). Due to our being a little later than we hoped, we went straight to a restraunt in the village near my place. Returning home, the real fun started. We installed everyone in their sleeping quarters, gave them alcohol, then parked them in my lounge with a lot of shoes. I'm not employed as a stenographer, so I will just note a couple of points .... Luc discovered Laphroaig whisky, my 40 year old loudspeakers gained an approval stamp, Jeff won the 5.5" heel elegant walk competition, Xaphod was last in the 5.5" heel walk competition, next door neighbour's boat was used as a backdrop for Luc posing in his green pyjamas and Morella's new knee-high plats (money received safely, M ) The next day a bunch of sleepy heelies were hustled out of my house to catch the train up to London for the big shopping bash. As we were somewhat late, I jumped out to pay for the tickets while the rest of the guys parked cars. OH GREAT, as I entered the ticket hall there were about 20 kids on an outing, also to London. There was the inevitable tittering as I bought the tickets, but hushed awe when the rest of the heelies appeared. In town, Firefox left the tube to meet those joining us at Tottenham Court Road, but we continued to Camden. Exiting Camden tube station, I was given a leaflet saying that doing drugs messed up one's life .... pretty ironic since we made a bee line directly to the pub for lunch ! Firefox arrived in the pub with SteveW and Francis in tow. I guess that Steve was a bit taken aback by a whole flock of heelies in one place. In the Camden shops, Steve bought a pair of chunky boots with a 3" heel and thick-ish sole which he wore for the rest of the day. They were good value for leather at 20 pounds, and Steve did well to resist the sales spiel of the shop assistants, some of whom, I think, would be better employed hustling as bookie's runners. There are many shops in Camden; at a first glance a great variety, but closer examination shows that the stock is very similar, and a charcter seen in one shop one day will be seen in another shop nearby on the next visit. I would trust this lot less than a barrow load of monkeys ! In Oxford Street, we did the usual run of Teepee, Faith, Dolcis, Topshop, Next, Shelleys and Barratts, plus lots of independents which can, on occasion, turn up something interesting. Furious texting organised Richie meeeting us in High Street Kensington. There we only just got to Sacha in time before they closed. I appeared in my Sacha chisel heel and toe knee boots, announcing to the the sales crew that I had some more guys with me this time. Six more guys walked in. Beeblebrox, after saying all day he wanted a black pair of hh cowboy boots, bought a grey and purple pair of 4" heel cowboy boots ! (BTW, Bbrox, I rang Sacha after you left here, and asked them to keep ANOTHER pair for you. I will buy them for you tomorrow). For those who think this might be a horrendous fashion faux-pas, the colour of the vamp goes with denim jeans and, when seated, some of the shaft shows grey which is a nice contrast. The quality is very good, the soles being leather and the uppers also soft leather. Unfortunately we did not notice that some of the seam stitching was defective for 10 mm, but, hell, the price was a quarter of the pre-sale price ! I will have a word with the Sacha people tomorrow and see what they say about this defect. We met Richie in Pizza Hut and acquired more shoes .... 3 pairs for GJ. Francis had to go home early, so the remaining 8 walked along the South side of Hyde Park to Imperial College bar. Firefox notes the beer is still reasonably priced, now 2/3 of the regular pub price. Maybe for this reason we remained, until nanny Xaphod started telling stories of freezing on Waterloo rail station between midnight and 0530, after missing the last train. At Waterloo, a weird happened. We were looking at the departure board to find the platform number for our train when a woman approached Luc. She was pretty drunk and asked 'why the hat and the heels?' Luc said something about 'why not?' and asked, so if I'm strange, what about this guy?' Her gaze slewed in my direction to encounter the hat, the long leather coat, and the knee-high sacha chisel heel/toe boots with leather trousers tucked inside. She put her hand to her mouth, started to giggle and said that I looked stupid. Our platform number had been announced, so I excused myself by saying our train was in, and we had to go. I hope, in my manner, a vain attempt to emulate the 'freeze water at 10 paces' technique used by women, she got the message I thought she was an individual unworthy of much of my time. Firefox accused me of an intentional wind-up on what happened next: boarding the train we found ourselves in the smoking section, and guess who we happened to meet, this damn woman and a couple of gormless-looking fellas. 'See' she said, 'these are the guys I was talking about', and to me, 'you look like Larry Adler in heels.' My reply .... 'what I look like and who I am may not necessarily be the same thing'. We left to find a carriage free of her smoking effluvium. Back home, we had a repeat of the previous night, the main attraction being our version of the Women's Institute flower arranging convention. In this case much debate was had on the optimum arrangement of the shoes we had purchased on this trip for the group shoe photograph. I think next-door neighbour's wife, boss of the local WI, would have been proud. The amount of flash photography would also have received acclaim, on a par with that at an amateur camera club meeting, photographing a particularly delicious nude female (we're merely interested in the artistic composition ..... honest guv ! ) The next day a bunch of sleepy heelies were hustled out of my house to get to the pub where lunch was booked. Luc and Beeblebrox now understand warm British beer better. Goodbyes were said, and the last we saw of Luc and Jeff was them negotiating a roundabout CLOCKWISE, this time, please. The two 4am and the 5am bedtimes are having an effect (temporarily counteracted using matchsticks) on this heely who needs his beauty sleep ..... much good that ever did. Night night. Xaphod

I'm looking to create a database of manufacturers of shoe parts, so we can have access to the same things ordinary shoemakers use.