As if I don't have other things to be getting on with, I gave Miss J a challenge: to pick five pictures of the weirdest shoes she could find and she told me I had to participate as well. She did an admirable job. Too good a job, if you ask me. That girl can Google far too well. Anyway, I humbly admit defeat on this challenge, but I will offer up my selection. While they may not be the weirdest shoes I could find (Miss J pretty much cornered the market on that one), they will come with a commentary.

My first offering is the keyboard shoe. A concept shoe that was obviously the brain child of Bill Gates. Only a geek with the fashion sense of a pink and purple striped zebra wearing acid green wedges would come up with this one. I do wonder as to why they made it a short boot. Maybe it's a metaphor for the operating system from hell... Or it could just be a really, really ugly shoe.

To the right, I give you the Ballet fetish shoe by Pierre Silber. The colour of this shoe is amazing, but I'm pretty sure your average woman is not going to want to do her shopping in this one, unless she misses the days in her youth when she was a young, lithe ballet dancer with an urge to constantly walk on pointe. I really do think that the whole idea of this shoe is to not walk, though. Strange concept, I know, but there are some people out there who wear shoes just for the sake of wearing shoes and maybe getting their rocks of at the same time. I realise that this may come as a shock to you all, but the sooner you learn that lesson and move on, the better.

The next shoe is, what can only be described as, an original. Take a perfectly good, cream-coloured, all-purpose pump and put some wood on the back of it with sharp pointy bits. You'll want to hope that your not the sort to walk with your ankles too close together or you will lose a lot of blood with this one. On the upside, if you made the wooden bit out of camphor, you'd at least keep the moths out of your wardrobe.

When I first saw this shoe, I thought it was an example of computer shoe art. How wrong I was. Now that you've recovered from the red ballet shoe, I'm about to reveal a little secret; the whole fetish thing isn't an entirely modern concept. Ok, take a deep breath. Stay with me here. This one is from 19th Century Austria. Those Germans have been at this sort of thing for a while. I will share with you the text that was on the same page. It's enlightening, to say the least.

" Shoe fetishists are in principal similar to foot-fetishists, but their stimulus, i.e. the shoe, becomes the total focus for arousal. The fetishist may work up to an erotic pitch by kissing, licking, gently biting and caressing the shoe. Smell also plays an important part to many. Some styles have an almost universal appeal among shoe fetishists. High heeled shoes and boots with fur or silk frills symbolize female genitalia and are considered the sexiest type of shoes. An erect ankle and extended leg is the biological sign of sexual availability in several animal species. Above deep-throated mule conjures up the unabashed décolletage of a plung-ing neckline and flatters the distended curve of a woman's instep. Its 8-inch heel renders the wearer immobile and forces surrendering, while the foot is trusted forward like an offering."

I told you, enlightening.

The last shoe is neither weird, or festishy, or ugly. I just kinda dig it, but those who know me will not be surprised.
Tomorrow is the handbag challenge...