Esther Walker

When we needed a new family car, I insisted on the Kia Sportage. My friend Charlotte leant me her Which? website password, I part-exchanged my erratic Volvo XC40 and a lovely Kia Sportage duly arrived. Of course, I immediately whizzed off to one of my favourite places in the world: Brent Cross Shopping Centre. I fantasised about all the things from John Lewis that I was going to toss into the Kia’s spacious boot.   But my daydreams were interrupted by an unexpected cacophony of noises from the car. Bleep… bleep… bleep! Ping! Plink! Plink-plink! Wonnngggg!

People can seem completely normal, until you look at their shoes. Particularly men. There they are, appearing sane: natty haircut, ironed shirt, non-psychotic trousers. But then: oh, horror! Terrible shoes. Slimy-looking Docksides, or Toms espadrilles, or something shiny and pointy. Or tremendous show-off brogues like Mr Noisy, with those execrable metal tap things, worn only by bounders and con men.  I was once, aged 23, struck silent with horror by the shoes of a boy who accompanied me to a beach: a pair of dusty brown lace-ups it seemed he’d had since Upper Sixth. I now understand this to be tremendously posh but at the time it turned my stomach. I am too suburban for that kind of thing.