Monday, May 05, 2008

These ain't flip flops!

I don't normally talk about footwear on this blog, at least not intentionally, but in line with its random nature, I'm going to take the opportunity to do so.
So be warned: this post has nothing to do with music. Well, not at this point, anyway. (Except that I'm still listening to The Wandering Gyre - sorry, the Widening Gyre (!) It's that Anthony Ritchie symphony I mentioned a couple of posts ago.
Anyway, back to footwear. I've just come across a site on the Net where they claim to be advertising flip flops. Flip flops, as any genuine Kiwi of a little vintage will know, are the Kiwi equivalent of jandals (or thongs, as they were also called - except that thongs are now what they call those dreadful skimpy bits of underwear that people who like to expose their rear-ends when they bend over always seem to wear).
I mean, does the thing in the picture in the upper left look anything like a flip flop to you? Well, it might if you're under 25, but to real people this ain't a flip flop. This is a scuff - even the site the picture comes from says it's a scuff. And it's used for climbing around bits of rock - if you're into that sort of thing. A genuine flip flop would give you absolutely no protection when climbing rocks. You'd bash your toe (s) within the first couple of minutes.
I should know about flip flops. My wife wore them constantly for years - hardly even wore anything else. (Although she, being English, called them jandals - and they were quite good for threatening recalcitrant children who wouldn't go to bed(!))

While we're on the subject of feet and their adjoining legs, I thought I might as well add this delightful picture of my legs encased in slippers. Slippers with paint on them, to show that I actually do other things beside blogging, sometimes!

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