h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Can some one please tell me what makes people think that the first thing people see when they meet you is your shoes(so you'd better keep them polished)??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

For some people it is the first thing they look at. Not me, my boots are normally falling to bits, but some people.....
BCNU - Crescent

I was told you should always polish your shoes before going to a funeral, because people are always looking down.

A lot of the time you can't see my shoes even if you tried as I tend to wear boot cut or flared trousers over my size 3 (size 36) feet that are so small they hide beneath the rim of the trousers! It creates the illusion that I'm floating when I walk!

size 3! That is UK size isn't it?
BCNU - Crescent

It's not the first thing people look at, but people do judge you by your shoes as much as(if not more than) anything else. This is why the bouncer on the door is most likely to refuse entry to those in trainers or scruffy shoes.

Crescent - yes size 3 as in a UK size 3. My 9 year old nieces have bigger feet than me! It's dead handy, I can buy kids shoes and trainers which are usually cheaper and there's always loads of size 3 shoes left for the sales. The bad point is that I usually fall over a lot when drunk as I don't have much to balance on!

Should you (general, not specific use) be getting married in church, remember to take the price of the soles of your shoes before you kneel to pray.
It is currently very hot in Hong Kong. The women in our department go in for painted toenails, sometimes with little pictures on the varnish. There is currently a vogue for matching strappy sandals. I certainly notice those, both in the department and on the MTR, where staring a people's feet seems politer than staring at their faces.

When my brother got married somebody wrote HE on the sole of one shoe and LP! on the other so that when he knelt down it read HELP!
Ironic when you think they are now divorced!

You can get super-shiny shoes that stay shiny and don't neet polished... I have a pair that are still shiny 18 months on!

It's alright for some, I haven't seen shoes on my feet since I was about 10. Just you wait Tigerlily, get ready to say goodbye!!!!

I always judge people by their shoes. They are a reflection of their personality and lifestyle. That doesn't mean that if they have shiny ones they're a good person, of course, -probably quite the opposite, (I don't think that polishing shoes is an important thing to spend time doing and as such I'd probably have more respect for someone with pleasantly shabby shoes). The design, type, formality, fashionability, age, initial cost and state of repair are all elements that should be considered when making sweeping, judgements about individuals based on their footwear. The range of shoes is immense, of course, and from that range theindividual has made an initial choice to acquire those particular shoes and to wear them in a particular context. Often a particular shoe identifies in a more or less obvious way, a particular social group or those with a pretense to that group. While in their possession the shoes may have become further adapted by the individual's personality in various ways. How comfortable do they look in the shoes, often someone may totter and shuffle about in shoes that they like as objects but which in reality just impair the elegence of their own movements.

If you think about your own footwear and that of people you know well, -in most cases it is clear how the shoes reflect the personality of their wearer. As a consequence you can usually make trustworthy, first-impression judgements about people you've never met before on this sole basis.

I've actually got to go out and by some of the d*****d things on Saturday, I'm going to a wedding & I've been threatened mo'bike boots won't do.

Call me old": I do choose which shoes to wear for comfort rather than speed nowadays...
...It does help having someone who was in the Boys' brigade in the near vicinity. i've hardly polished a pair of shoes in 13 years and he does a lovely job
Tigerlily - if you move too fast don't you end up drilling yourself into the ground?

The main reason for cleaning and polishing shoes is that they last longer. And it's actually quite soothing sitting on the stoop with the polishing stuff and a G&T. Did you know that gin will take the white water stains off dark shoes (after you've been out in the snow for example)?

For a military style polish on schoolboy laziness.

You need:
- A tin of black wax
- A cigarette lighter
- An old sock

Take the lid off the wax and set fire to it with the cigarette lighter. It will take about 10 seconds to flame up. Then once a pool of moltenm wax has formed blow out the flame and dunk the sock into this pool. Quickly rub it all over the shoe. Repeat with the other shoe (unless, of course, you are monopedal).

So that's why you always finished the term with odd socks.
Now we need an ex-serviceman to give us the low down on toothbrush handles.

I think this one could do with another airing too.

You mean you've had them shoes on all this time

Pooo! What a stink...