It’s true. All opinions stem from research gathered in Loughborough. All of those Gallup opinion polls are generated by asking questions of the fair citizens of this beautiful Midland town. I crossed the recently pedestrianized town centre on a hunt for cat equipment, and saw two competing groups of question askers. I ducked past one set of bib-wearing surveymakers, I spontaneously reached for my cell phone to skirt the second. I hadn’t seen the third set, lurking behind a curious statue of a man with his foot sticking out.
“Do you drink Bitter?”
“What?”
“Do you drink Bitter? Bitter beer out of cans?”
“No. Hang on, are you giving it away?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
The secret is to keep moving as you shake your head. By this time, I had paced backwards about four metres, and turned to continue. I could not. My escape was blocked by someone from the University of Newcastle who wanted to know my feelings about modern shoes. She was slightly more amusing, and being a man of leisure, I spared her the time to answer at length absurd questions like,
“Are there any styles of shoes you wouldn’t wear?”
“Clown shoes. Halibut loafers with a lemon sole. Platform stilts. Human leather winkle-pickers with Grolsch bottle stoppers for laces. Porcelain clogs. Granite Doc Martens….”
I mean really. The best part was that she had to write them all down in her little answer boxes on her clipboard. I hope I feature in someone’s thesis. Immortalised in shoe history as a statistical anamoly. Just like everyone who made Jedi an official religion in the UK.