The One Shoe Conundrum

[Ian3.4]

Over several months whilst travelling along the motorways in both the UK and abroad I have noticed on occasions a single shoe abandoned on the hard shoulder, last week for example no less than 6 individual items of footware were spotted in a trip from Swansea back to London.
The next day 3 more, a trainer, a gents dress shoe and a ladies ballet slipper (of all things) were spied on the M40 heading to Birmingham!

Now, what on earth causes someone to jettison a single shoe and what happens to the other one. How do these objects get there? I have never seen anyone gleefully throwing shoes from passing vehicles wearing a secret smile at the conundrums caused to observant fellow motorists and neither have I seen the passengers of stranded or broken down vehicles casualy discarding a shoe as if to mark the spot were their motor expired.

Does the Manufactures United Guild of Shoemakers (MUGS) spend inordinate amounts of time and money scattering single items of footware the lenght and breadth of the European Motor Way systems just for fun or, like Eddy Stobbart Lorries, were once spotted the names can be ticked of in a collectors book, can you purchase a magazine (perhaps called the Eye Spy book of Abondoned Shoes) and note the time seen and the position of said shoe. I suppose stopping to get make and size is contravening Motor way rules and should be avoided at all costs. Then perhaps, once a month there is a meeting of the magazine aficionados who discuss special sightings over a glass of porter and a pickled egg at a sutable hostelry etc.

It can not just be me that has noticed these forlorn objects so if anyone has any ideas.....................or knows a monolegged ballet dancer!

Ian 3.4

[smiffy]

Perhaps they were thrown at the ghost of George Dubya by irate journalists?
Dave

[jwment]

I can follow your reasoning there Smitty.

However, Ian, you cannot possibly be driving your Jag in the proper manner that it's accustomed to, if you have time to leisurely search the hedgerows and gutters for odd shoes. Put yer foot down man. Enjoy it!

Personally, odd shoes here and there don't intreig me too much, but cruising around the Welsh back roads in the Wife's Corsa, I cannot help but notice the amount of women's underwear decorating the bushes. Now this syndrum could well be worth further investigation, don't yer think?

Johnny M

[smiffy]

Gentlemen
Some men work in banking (though not for much longer maybe?) and some men work in women's underwear. Perhaps there are just more of these in Wales, but why they should discard their frillies in the hedgerow is beyond me, unless they drive 'commando'.
Happy hunting!
Dave

[jwment]

Smitty, I said I was cruising the Welsh lanes in the wife's CORSA (a Vauxhall Mini), not her corsets. I gotta use summat whilast the Jags cuccooned up for the winter.

Johnny M

[simon4253]

thankfully only ever beem yo wales in a jag sonot had time to examine hedgerows but having driven a corsa I fully understand your wandering eyes! I will pray forgood weather so can return to jag while still sane!

[jwment]

Someone understands my frustration, thanks Simon.

I started to unwrap the Jag on wednesday. It snowed again, and from my back window I watched the gritters loading up again to spread some more.

Never thought I'd ever say this, but I'm praying for a damned good downpour for a couple of days. To wash all this crap away. The roads round here have been a pretty pink colour for months.

I've just gotta find a spare barn nearby some how. Have you seen the prices classic cars are selling for now. Having just sold off all my business interests and retired, I've got a substansive pot to invest, but I've run out of room to store any more. Those I have got are all under sheets out in the open, where Mother Nature tries her best to get in. I'm halfway up a mountain here, and it can get pretty draughty.

Johnny M

[jwment]

Fri 13th March. Picked up a full set of steel wheels, tyres, and hubcaps which I found going cheap on ebay (Left overs from a wire wheel fit). All good, but he'd let the air out during storage, so I still don't have a usable spare, in order to get the Duchess moved. I notice that these '61 wheels have got extra little pins to fit the Discs onto, so the discs aren't gonna fit on my '68 pattern wheels, are they.

Seller also had a very nice 1961 2.4 Mk2, which the wheels had come off. It had just been auctioned off at £5300, but the buyer has let him down. If it had had a bigger engine I'd have probably snapped it up, but 'er indoors says I can't have it 'cos I've got nowhere to keep it. Looks very nice though. Anyone interested? It's in Hawkshaw, near Bury, Lancs.

Johnny M

[Ian3.4]

Gents (and any Ladies involved)

Welsh underware, snow, storage space, winter warmers (more underware)
have we lost the plot?

Yes, thank goodness, after all, the price of fish must be eclectic and wander a little (or a lot)

Anyway, new find today, or should I say sighting, ran over a navies clog on the B4242 (in the Touareg I might add!)

Made a hell of a mess of the clog and the splinters didnt do a lot of good for the tyre!

Beware you lot, the "MUGS" are getting sneaky!

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!

[JAGAZ]

Today i was nearly bricked !.while out on my motorbike i ended up behind a tipper .I kept getting covered in a gritty sort of dust and then i saw it.A whole house brick wedged between the tyres on the offside rear of the tipper .With every revolution the brick tried to break free untill it hit the road and was pushed back in.Just as i thought that i should maybe get out of the way it let go and hit the floor dividing into 2 main lumps ,one heading for my nut and the other my front wheel.Someone up there must like me as somehow i managed to dodge them and then stopped to collect my thoughts,which were,I HATE BLOODY TRUCKS !!!!!!!!.

[smiffy]

Hi all
With summer well settled in around these parts, thoughts turn to barbeques. I have never tried to barbeque in a shoe, but I do salvage old oil drums from ditches. When cut in two, these make fantastic barbeques.
However, I have not found an oil drum in a ditch for some while now. Is someone using them to collect up and store single shoes, or is there something more sinister going on? I think we should be told......
Best wishes, David

[jwment]

Spare oil drums are in very short supply here in Wales since the Taffs learned that you can run deisels on recycled chipfat.

Johnny M

[JAGAZ]

So that`s why i feel the need for a chip butty every time i ride my bike in Wales.