Best foot forward
I’ve always had these feet,’ the lady sighed to her friend. ‘Yes, I know,’ came the sympathetic reply from her companion, as I sat, sniggering, behind them on the bus. But then I started to think about feet and the way in which they can dominate your life.
According to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, ‘When our feet hurt, we hurt all over.’ A true philosopher! One wonders if he came to that conclusion after a hard day’s shopping.
Over decades of walking miles in uniform-issue court shoes, my feet have been rendered persona non grata, a toxic mix of unsightliness and pain. As a result, when planning my outfit for any occasion, the driving force is what can I put on my feet?
It’s not as if I don’t have a good selection of shoes. On the contrary, I could give Imelda Marcos a run for her money. But it’s a question of what I can tolerate, and for how long. Do I have to walk any distance? (Trousers and boots.) Will I be standing or dancing? (Longer skirt, low heels.) Or will I mostly be sitting down? (Short skirt, killer heels.) And I have taken to carrying capacious handbags so that I can stuff a pair of comfy shoes inside for emergency use. I cannot help but identify with the inimitable Pam Ayres when she writes about her winklepickers: ‘And when I took them off/I’d sit and laugh for half an hour.’
Another ancient Greek, Hercules, was allegedly the benchmark for the foot as a form of measurement. But it is believed that it was the Egyptians who first used the foot as a form of measurement, passing it on to the Greeks and the Romans. The Romans, from whom we inherited the measurement, calculated distances based on the average size of a Roman man’s foot.
But, one wonders, what constitutes an average size? My mother, who is 4ft 10in tall, takes a dainty size 1½ shoe, whereas, according to the Guinness Book Of Records, a Moroccan man named Brahim Takioullah, who is 8ft 1in tall, has feet that measure 1ft 3in. Obviously undaunted by this inconsistency, the Romans divided the foot into 12 inches and introduced a pace, which was two steps. They calculated a mile as 1,000 paces.
Although this formula was handed down to the English for measuring distances, when it came to measuring land we used a rod. Now this rod (also known as a perch or a pole) was the equivalent of 16.5ft. Four rods equalled a chain and 10 chains were a furlong. Eight furlongs equalled one mile. But, of course, the Roman mile and the British mile was not the same.
In 1593, Parliament decided to standardise the units of measurement. You might imagine it would have been a sensible solution to shave the mile down to 5,000ft. But, as rods and furlongs were the common measurements used for surveying, and changing them would have thrown Land Registry and Titles into confusion, it was decided that these distances would remain the standard and therefore the mile remained the equivalent of eight furlongs and was set at 5,280ft. Mind you, we still don’t know whose foot was responsible for setting the original standard.
Still on the subject of ancient Greeks, the famous warrior Achilles was the focus of an interesting legend. It was foretold that he would die young. So, when he was a baby, his mother, Thetis, in an effort to protect him, dipped him into the River Styx, which reputedly had the power to make you invulnerable. Because she held him by his ankle this was the one bit that was not protected. He grew up to fight many battles, but was killed by Paris, whose poisoned arrow hit him on the heel. To this day, the Achilles heel is a term used for a weakness.
A quarter of all our bones are situated in our feet, so it’s hardly surprising that they are so delicate. But, can you imagine deliberately breaking some of those bones for the sake of vanity? In China, during the early 10th century, foot binding was a tradition practised by all social classes. From the age of five, girls would have their toes tightly bound in cloth.
A bandage, two inches wide and 10ft long, was wrapped securely in a figure-of-eight pattern that compressed the arch and bent the four smaller toes. The bandages became progressively tighter, a ritual that, over the years, resulted in the bones breaking and curling the foot under. The ultimate product was a sort of club foot – the optimum length being no more than three inches. Repugnant as this seems to us, Chinese men found this very erotic. A small, dainty foot was considered a sign of beauty and greatly increased a girl’s marriage prospects. And speaking of marriage prospects, the idea of a small, dainty foot is reflected in the fairytale Cinderella, where the prince searches the land for the lady who has a foot small enough to fit into a glass slipper.
Another ritual involving feet is that of fire-walking. Practised widely in India, there are many theories on how this is achieved without severely damaging the soles of the feet. These include the use of drugs, trances and religious faith, but another theory is that the feet are naturally protected by a shield of sweat.
As well as 26 bones in each foot there are also approximately 250,000 sweat glands, emitting as much as half a pint of moisture every day. In the same way that damping your fingers enables you to snuff out a candle without causing harm, it is suggested that the ‘sizzle effect’ creates an insulating layer of steam that, provided you move quickly, will be enough to shield the foot while you scuttle across a bed of burning coals – a theory I have no mind to personally put to the test.
So, who would have imagined that sweaty feet might actually be an asset? I remind myself of this as I lever off my dirty trainers after an outing with the dogs. I have finally come to the conclusion that my days of wearing winkle-pickers are over. I have indeed always had these feet and will not get any others so I have decided to show them respect. After all, they have more influence on our lives than we might have imagined.
According to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, ‘When our feet hurt, we hurt all over.’ A true philosopher! One wonders if he came to that conclusion after a hard day’s shopping.
Over decades of walking miles in uniform-issue court shoes, my feet have been rendered persona non grata, a toxic mix of unsightliness and pain. As a result, when planning my outfit for any occasion, the driving force is what can I put on my feet?
It’s not as if I don’t have a good selection of shoes. On the contrary, I could give Imelda Marcos a run for her money. But it’s a question of what I can tolerate, and for how long. Do I have to walk any distance? (Trousers and boots.) Will I be standing or dancing? (Longer skirt, low heels.) Or will I mostly be sitting down? (Short skirt, killer heels.) And I have taken to carrying capacious handbags so that I can stuff a pair of comfy shoes inside for emergency use. I cannot help but identify with the inimitable Pam Ayres when she writes about her winklepickers: ‘And when I took them off/I’d sit and laugh for half an hour.’
Another ancient Greek, Hercules, was allegedly the benchmark for the foot as a form of measurement. But it is believed that it was the Egyptians who first used the foot as a form of measurement, passing it on to the Greeks and the Romans. The Romans, from whom we inherited the measurement, calculated distances based on the average size of a Roman man’s foot.
But, one wonders, what constitutes an average size? My mother, who is 4ft 10in tall, takes a dainty size 1½ shoe, whereas, according to the Guinness Book Of Records, a Moroccan man named Brahim Takioullah, who is 8ft 1in tall, has feet that measure 1ft 3in. Obviously undaunted by this inconsistency, the Romans divided the foot into 12 inches and introduced a pace, which was two steps. They calculated a mile as 1,000 paces.
Although this formula was handed down to the English for measuring distances, when it came to measuring land we used a rod. Now this rod (also known as a perch or a pole) was the equivalent of 16.5ft. Four rods equalled a chain and 10 chains were a furlong. Eight furlongs equalled one mile. But, of course, the Roman mile and the British mile was not the same.
In 1593, Parliament decided to standardise the units of measurement. You might imagine it would have been a sensible solution to shave the mile down to 5,000ft. But, as rods and furlongs were the common measurements used for surveying, and changing them would have thrown Land Registry and Titles into confusion, it was decided that these distances would remain the standard and therefore the mile remained the equivalent of eight furlongs and was set at 5,280ft. Mind you, we still don’t know whose foot was responsible for setting the original standard.
Still on the subject of ancient Greeks, the famous warrior Achilles was the focus of an interesting legend. It was foretold that he would die young. So, when he was a baby, his mother, Thetis, in an effort to protect him, dipped him into the River Styx, which reputedly had the power to make you invulnerable. Because she held him by his ankle this was the one bit that was not protected. He grew up to fight many battles, but was killed by Paris, whose poisoned arrow hit him on the heel. To this day, the Achilles heel is a term used for a weakness. A quarter of all our bones are situated in our feet, so it’s hardly surprising that they are so delicate. But, can you imagine deliberately breaking some of those bones for the sake of vanity? In China, during the early 10th century, foot binding was a tradition practised by all social classes. From the age of five, girls would have their toes tightly bound in cloth.
A bandage, two inches wide and 10ft long, was wrapped securely in a figure-of-eight pattern that compressed the arch and bent the four smaller toes. The bandages became progressively tighter, a ritual that, over the years, resulted in the bones breaking and curling the foot under. The ultimate product was a sort of club foot – the optimum length being no more than three inches. Repugnant as this seems to us, Chinese men found this very erotic. A small, dainty foot was considered a sign of beauty and greatly increased a girl’s marriage prospects. And speaking of marriage prospects, the idea of a small, dainty foot is reflected in the fairytale Cinderella, where the prince searches the land for the lady who has a foot small enough to fit into a glass slipper.
Another ritual involving feet is that of fire-walking. Practised widely in India, there are many theories on how this is achieved without severely damaging the soles of the feet. These include the use of drugs, trances and religious faith, but another theory is that the feet are naturally protected by a shield of sweat.
As well as 26 bones in each foot there are also approximately 250,000 sweat glands, emitting as much as half a pint of moisture every day. In the same way that damping your fingers enables you to snuff out a candle without causing harm, it is suggested that the ‘sizzle effect’ creates an insulating layer of steam that, provided you move quickly, will be enough to shield the foot while you scuttle across a bed of burning coals – a theory I have no mind to personally put to the test.
So, who would have imagined that sweaty feet might actually be an asset? I remind myself of this as I lever off my dirty trainers after an outing with the dogs. I have finally come to the conclusion that my days of wearing winkle-pickers are over. I have indeed always had these feet and will not get any others so I have decided to show them respect. After all, they have more influence on our lives than we might have imagined.