The boot is not on the other foot
I’VE Just read a fact on t’internet (so it must be true) that modern men now supposedly spend more money on shoes than women.
Admittedly, this indeed sounds like the sort of fake news that only Trump or Putin could churn out.
Nevertheless, I can visualise wives and other halves across the region pointing to the screen of their smart devices and exclaiming to their (perpetually) confused menfolk – “hah! see, see!” Actually , I don’t really see.
Before I get accused of having more shoes than the late Filipino president’s wife, Imelda, or being embroiled in the gender war - let me say one word .... Statistics.
Did you know at least 78.4% of statistical figures are made up. That’s 46.7% true, by the way. So what if men nowadays allegedly spend more on shoes, that means nowt. Does the term ‘men’ include proper Geordie blokes like me dad, the gadgies in the lounge of the local club or the missus’s frugal Yorkshire relatives?
If it does include them, then the figures are cobblers as these lads certainly don’t fit this trend.
Never mind the odd south London gang leader or ‘metrosexual’ footballer or gangsta’ rapper buying a pair of top-of-the-range trainers every week – ’me fatha’ (and I strongly suspect a lot of other readers’ dads) has a pair of ex-National Coal Board steel cap shoes he bought in 1983 from a place on Gateshead high street that has long since been knocked down.
It was demolished twice, actually, The first time was to make way for that concrete abomination of a ‘shopping centre’ that was clearly based upon the blueprints for Hitler’s Atlantic wall fortifications.
And secondly for the set of the science fiction movie Bladerunner that they have built to convince students that they are living in the future as opposed to central Gateshead.
As a Gateshead boy born and bred, I am entitled to point out the deep inconsistencies and ironies inherent in such a fallacy.
To return to the old man’s footwear and their legendary long lifespan, the true genius is that these ‘shoes’ have remained so timeless precisely because they are so inherently awful they have always existed outside the arena of what was judged fashionable or smart, whatever the decade. “They’ll nivvor gan oot because they were nivvor in” proclaims my pater proudly in a bizarre burst of inverted Geordie Dad pride.
Similarly, Geordie dads will also brag to any audience how cheap their haircuts were, regardless of the resulting style atrocity.
“Ah nivvor pay more than a fiver, me” me lovely auld fatha will smugly announce as he models a haircut last seen on Devil’s Island inmates.
Men like these are not going to have more shoes on their floor than the outside a bouncy castle.
Finally, any survey comparing male and female shoe counts will always be meaningless because no man alive has ever been truly aware of how many shoes his other half truly owns.
Are they new pet?”.. “(lying) don’t be ridiculous Monkey boy, I wore these last month at Keith’s 40th”... “sorry pet”.
You then are given a punishing dressing down and self-criticism seminar which is worthy of a North Korean re-education camp.
How dare you be so criminally, negligently and selfishly unaware of what your beloved wears?
You feel dreadful – completely unaware that this state of footwear ignorance is exactly where she wants you to be. Genius, girls, genius.
Mike is performing his own special one-hour show, at the Stand Comedy Club in Newcastle on Monday June 25.