Walking with a stone in my shoe

How far can you walk with a stone in your shoe? Quite a way really, further than if the stone is caught up in your boot.

But not as far as if it is just a pebble in summer sandals so open you can kick it out as you walk.

The thing about a pebble in your boot is that it is a small but real and constant irritation, which slows you down while you think what it is and what to do about it.

The sandal is open and easy; the boot is zipped and fitting; the shoe is that half way walk wear that you can cope in, the stone bothers you but that’s all.

It is not like there is no foot to be troubled, and there’s a leg connecting that foot to the rest of you and sure, there’s comfort in that.

What can’t work is wearing or designing something so cool it might fit into the wearable art category but none other.

I am thinking of the bare lines of that horrifyingly blackened and burnt Grenfell Tower in London in which so many people have perished.

What was missing from that building were the solid iron fire escapes that once sprung from every multi-storeyed building, promising safety in case of fire.

You see them in old photographs of Invercargill, clinging to the outer walls of high schools, hospitals, movie theatres, hotels.

And we treasured them in art, black and white photographs of cities like Chicago and in movies set in New York when in preShould l use air conditioning days families spent hot summer evenings outside on the fire

escapes of their tenement or apartment buildings.

Most fire escapes stopped well short of the ground, say ten feet, to deter ne’er -do- wells from climbing up what was intended only for those climbing down to escape the flames of fire.

Home owners might sometimes use a clever coil of escape from their storeyed mansions, allowing those escaping to safely climb down the roll their feet unlocked easily as they walked down.

I have heard no words about Grenfell Tower’s missing fire escapes, which suggests they never were there, an unsettling thought.

We need to check things out here.