Big Foot's Love Child

What would life be like if this guy was your father?:

You'd have all the opportunity required to take some grainy images of him, sell them on to crackpots and keep a steady flow of income coming for the rest of his life. Brilliant, huh?

Well, no. Likelihood is the inheritance of some of his features - a rather luxuriant all-over coat might work for a week or two as a copy of 'that darling designer coat on the cover of vogue' but after that it might prove an issue. Think of the shampoo costs. And the hair down the plug hole situation. Eww. Anyhoo, I digress.

The reason I come to spending my Friday evening googling Big Foot pictures? Because it would seem that I am the love child of our furry friend, at least according to EVERYONE in the shoe industry.

I don't have the hair issue. At least I don't think so. If I seem to have a rather worrying amount of hair going on, please tell me! No, I have the big feet problem.

They might not be on a level with these babies, but my - shock, horror, gasp! - size 9 feet seem to have provoked a reaction of revulsion and disbelief amongst the shoe-sellers of Edinburgh., Seriously, when I enquired as to what size one well-respected shoe chain go up to, my high-pitched reaction - "Eight in some styles?! Some styles?"- and the shop assistant's look of horror at my shoe size put paid to the overly cheery 'How can I help you' before I'd even had time to clap eyes on a shoe. Traipsing from shop to shop, it would seem that all they have on offer in the women's shoe section is some faux-crocodile skin three-inch heeled thigh high boots. Since I would rather chop my toes off than squeeze myself into those atrocities, I was left with damp feet. Buying a cheap and appalling quality pair of brogues - as they were literally the only thing I could get on my feet in the entirety of Edinburgh I began a search for what I could get on the internet. Result? Stripper shoes.

http://www.vivaladiva.com/shop/product/details/show.action?pdLpUid=RV595&pdBoUid=2719&lpgUid=11188744#colour:1904,size:42

Seeing my cause to be lost, even to the unimaginable powers of the internet, I raided the men's section of M & S. And there I was faced with the undeniable difference in the philosophy underpinning men and women's shoes: masculinity is assured by making one's feet look gigantic; femininity is assured by making one's feet look tiny and delicate.

So my final conclusion is that we should bring back the binding of little girl's feet.

Oh wait, no it's not. Because that would be unbelievably stupid.

My actual final conclusion is that the shoe industry needs to get over the ideology that women's feet should be delicate wee flowers and take note that my feet exist and deserve to be shod!