Shoelaces

These last few days I've been wearing black Doc Martins. Now, DMs normally make boots, and they became famous as part of the punk movement back in olden days. My DMs are featureless coroprate shoes that I wear for formal occaisions. Doc Martin take a kind of Harland and Wolff attitude to shoe design, such that my seeming Office Junior shoes have steel toecaps extending about halfway back along the foot. it makes me feel slightly like Oddjob, or somebody.

My normal shoes came from an end-of-line sale in Mole Valley Farmers. They're brown, kind of sailing-chic, and I've broken the laces on them. They're not on the shelf next to brogues and enexpected Doc Martins, exactly, but they certainly aren't anywhere cool. Like me, they're gazing over the shop isle, torn between contempt, envy and overwhelming non-comprehension as they look at all the cool shoes with their white colour, ostentatious laces and logos.

So I need new shoe laces. The trouble is, no-where sells shoelaces.

My first stop was Tesco. I didn't really think they'd sell me shoelaces, but it was the nearest shop. Also, I was hungry. i bought some curry though. It was very nice.

Then I went to WH Smith. Again, I knew the chances of finding shoelaces there were low, but I'd also been trying to buy some black ink cartridges. Nowhere sells those, either, it seems. Blue ink cartirdges now, you can pick those up at any corner shop. WH Smith, being the stationery giants they are, carry multi-coloured Ink cartidges and scented ink cartidges. Seriously, there they were, Vanilla, Bannana and Raspberry scented ink. I reflected that my tutors might not take well to Wavefunction matrices that smell of fruit. I think I'm already on dubious ground making comments like "Bonny Prince Intuition makes a bold but ill-fated landing on the Shores of Quantum" at the end of questions. In the end, I found some black ink: Under a pile of Vinyl records in a back storeroom that I had to break into.

That achieved, I turned the full force of my intelect to the problem of new shoelaces.

I went to Boswells.

Boswells is Oxford's Everything shop. It's one of those multi-department cathederals that will sells things you don't want but don't want to be without: Cake tins, bath mats, lamp shades, scissors, coaxial cable. I firmly believe they sell everything ever, so it's mathemtaically proven that they sell shoelaces. But this is where the department-store format falls down.

Shoelaces aren't in any category. There's no meaningful way you can divide the world of retail that includes Shoelaces with anything else except maybe shoes. So that's where I went.

Boswells caters primarily for women of a certain age. By which I mean, the age where they mostly wear brown synthetic slip-on shoes and slippers the rest of the time. Presumably this is because it's they who are mostly responsible for supplying houses. Therefore, my inability to buy shoelaces in Boswells is a direct consequence of our society's patriarchal hangover.

Leaving in dissapointment, I started walking down Cornmarket street, and that's when I saw it: Timpsons Services, a shop about the size of a largish cupboard. Outside were sandwhich boards advertising house number plates and key-cutting. Inside, they had a locksmith on one side: the whole other wall- about a metre square- was covered in shoelaces.

Last autumn I went to Italy. While in Rome, we went to the Vatican. No-one can help but be moved by the place, but as an atheist of vauge methodist stock, my overwhelming sensation was one of entering an arcane temple of hidden significance utterly beyond my understanding. What is it's purpose? How did it come to exist? How has it survived in this world? Stretching over the world and through the ages, it's hidden mystery literally filled the air. Such was the sensation on entering Timpsons' services.

I hope the laces I bought fit. I fear that if I try to go back, I'll find nothing but a blank brick wall and blank stares from locals when I ask what happened to the shop I visited Just Yesterday, don't you understand? No sir, they say, that slot hasn't been occupied for as long as I can remember....

Threading my shoes will be like a ritual of power from now on, done reverentially and awefully. Perhaps, like Wayland's sandals, they will grant my some mysterious power.

If not, then at least I can stop wearing these damn Doc Martins.

Song in my head: "It's Over" by The Beta Band

P.S. Blogger has launched a range of new features, but so far they're quite frankly just bugging out. Expect me to tinker with the blog some in the immediate future. tinker, tinker