They shouldn’t try and buy shoes at the Clark’s Factory Outlet Shop in Elephant & Castle Shopping Centre….
“It’s a bit nasty, but they are Clarks and they’re really, really cheap,” I was told, “and you do need a pair for tonight.”
And it’s true, I do need a pair of shoes for tonight and they are really, really cheap. And it’s quite a large shop with row upon row of men’s shoes, not all of which are beige. Three rows of size 7. Two rows of size 8. A row of size 9. Half a row of size 10. Three shelves of size 10 1/2. Four pairs of size 11. They have a pair of very nice brogues with proper souls for twenty quid. In size 7, of course. I take them to the girl at the counter.
“Do you do these in a twelve?” I ask.
After managing to summon up enough disinterest to wave in the general direction of the men’s shoes, she gently explains that, “If it’s not on the shelf we ain’t got any.”
“Do you sell any shoes that are size 12?”
“Wot? Size 12? That’s abnormal sizes that is.” At this point she actually looks up at me. Way up, as she’s about 4′8″ and I’m abnormal. “We don’t sell many size 12.”
“You might sell more if you actually kept some in stock.” I point out, ever eager to be helpful.
“You wot?”
“I mean, quite obviously, you’re not going to sell items which you don’t have for sale.”
“Wot?”
“Look. All I want is a pair of shoes in size 12. Can you tell me where I could find some? Another shop nearby that caters for abnormal people?”
“You can’t say ‘abnormal’ anymore,” she says, smiling, “but I’ve got these,” and pats the box on the counter.
It’s the Holy Grail. The only pair of size 12 shoes in the shop and, what’s more, plain black leather. Just what I’ve been looking for and they fit perfectly.
“They fit perfectly. Why couldn’t you just have sold them in the first place?” I ask.
“‘Cause we don’t sell size 12. There’s no call for ‘em. These were a false delivery that we’re sending back.”
I wouldn’t mind the “abnormal” so much but I’m only 6′2″ - and now I’ve worn them for an hour I’ve noticed that the shoes pinch….
Is there actually a Clarks’ factory in that shopping centre? As a shoe factory outlet without a factory is just a shoe shop, really. I hope you went into the café (not the poshi-ish one plonked into the middle of the centre, but the nasty, greasy-spoon-ish one that is on a corner, with the two counters, one for tea, fish, chips and the like, and the other for a kind of “Maryland Fried Chicken” deal, and watched all those families having dinner (mainly chips) there.
Phew, for a moment there I thought you were going to post about your huge willy!
To my shame, I have never actually walked on the hallowed ground of Elephant and Castle. Is that shopping centre still pink, or has it been done up? I must say, Herr Actual, your travels do take you round the world. Paris, bits of Germany, Staffs. AND E&C. Good stuff.
By the way, what was the occasion? A swish bash?
I think the elephant outside is still pink (I was there about 5 weeks ago), but inside, it’s as much as a hell-hole - with a curious signing system - “British Rail Station this way, Toilets this way, Woolworths round the cornerLondon College of Printing (looking like an office block in Vukovar in the mid-1990s) that way, Tescos next to that grotesque café, IRA bookshop closed” - as it ever was. But as you’re lucky enough to have never been in there, you won’t quite know what I mean. Imagine a larger, more dirtier, more proletarian and more inside version of the shopping arcade as Onkel Toms Hütte station (on the U1), which was probably state of the art when opened, but is now just in a bit of a state. What’s that new town in Scotland called which had the “multi storey town centre” including Britain’s first ‘US-style’ shopping mall? Like that.
Incase that led to confusion, that’s the “shopping arcade at Onkel Toms Hütte”.
Daggi: “What’s it called? Cumbernauld!” - See, I still know much more about the rest of the UK (except perhaps South Wales) than London. Which is perhaps why I was persuaded to go to E&C to buy shoes. I have absolutely no idea where places are in relationship to one another in real life instead of on the Tube map. I generally emerge from underground with my oyster card and an “Oh bollocks!” I know where small bits of London are: Euston station, Streatham, Highgate and so on, but not where they are in relationship to one another. And I’ve got no idea about central/tourist London.
P.S. I think it was Maine Southern Fried Chicken, and I wasn’t prepared to trust the deep fat frying skills of someone whose geography was so out of whack.
Bib: Obviously I wouldn’t want to talk about genitalia and finally destroy the myth that there’s any kind of link to shoe size. And yes, it was quite a swish bash, but I have to ask if I can write about it.
Where Gregory’s Girl was filmed. Indeed.
If you stop using the tube, and then start using a bus, you will realise all those places are a cat’s jump from one another and the tube is one big con. Then you start walking.
try this being
female.
5.8
size 10
in INDIA
…and then we will talk about shoe woes
Imagine that in Imperial China.
They have a pair of very nice brogues with proper souls
You’ll not find any of those ghastly, damned, heathen spirits at Clark’s.
Try broad toes, narrow heels, low ankle bones. I remember once being told that I the wrong sort of feet for shoes, which I think is analogous to the wrong sort of snow or leaves on the line. In another shop I was told my feet were broken (in the no longer functioning sense).
And have you considered going to a normal shoe shop when it’s got a sale on? Because they only ever seem to have 3 size 6s, a 7, 2 11s and about 29 pairs in size 12 (and one abandoned shoe in size 13).
Anyhoo: Actually, the size 12s were inhabited by a pinchy, rubby demonic spirit. And try “broad toes, narrow heels, low ankle bones”, heels rubbed away by a pair of shoes the day before AND the cheap skates at the outdoor ice skating at the Natural History Museum (it’s £12, so get someone else to pay).
Daggi: I should quote a suitable and passing Gregory phrase now, but can’t think of any.Not even anything penguin-related.
I was amazed to learn that they apparently still use the early 90s “What’s it called?” strapline in Cumbernauld (I’m told - I wouldn’t actually go there to find out). And remember, Life is for Livingston, Glasgow’s Miles Better, Harrogate: In Yorkshire, but without all those frightful Northerners. Is there a Berlin equivalent? Does it contain the word überschuldet?
Pramila: Are those Californian sizes?
Wowereit said Berlin’s “Arm, aber Sexy”; but thank fuck the city hasn’t become a one-party one-leader state yet, or it would be the offical slogan.
if there’s 12 inches to a foot, why in terms of footware is size 12 abnormal?
I’m delighted that your shoes have proper souls. My handbags and belts all have distinct personalities and some, inevitably, suffer some kind of character disorder.