24 March 2009

What's afoot? Roadside shoes now in pairs

We once had a sensational idea for a website. Called www.socksreunited.co.uk, it would enable you to register all those odd socks that end up in your wardrobe. The website would match such single socks by colour, pattern and size across users, emabling you to create pairs between you to mutual benefit.

Obviously, nothing came of it, like our other idea for a text-messaging social-networking site called www.witter.com. That'd obviously never work. But the lone-bits-of-footwear idea did come back to me a fortnight ago when I noticed the large amount of single shoes discarded on London's roads that you see while cycling around.

Already, however, lone shoes are old hat. Now they're being jettisoned in pairs. Last week I saw a fine brace of ladies' lace-up high-heels on Waterloo Bridge. I couldn't take a picture as I was too busy not being run over by a bus.

Then last night, at the end of Churchyard Row near the Elephant and Castle, was this left-right set of football boots (right).

I've no idea what's going on. But I do know there's no money in a website about it.

6 comments:

  1. On a different note, that seems rather unusual road markings. What does the 2 under the cycle symbol indicate?

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  2. The 2 painted on the road denotes route 2 in the London Cycle Network. If you look at this map the thick blue lines are London Cycle Network and the thick red lines are National Cycle Network. You can see London route 2 running from the bottom right corner towards Elephant & Castle.

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  3. And there was me thinking it was number of shoes...

    There's more stuff about the LCN on its website... but word currently seems to be that official enthusiasm for completing LCN has stalled, with energies more focused on delivering the bike hire scheme for May 2010.

    The numbers-in-a-square also appear on some blue cycle route signs.

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  4. Ah thanks. I've not done enough cycling in London to have noticed these before, and they're not used on National Cycle Network routes. Shame, they'd be a lot easier spot than the usual tiny signs hidden on a lamppost in a bush.

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  5. Oh, we have the tiny signs on a lamp post in London. Probably not in a bush, but probably with a "No war!" sticker on.

    I've seen a very drunk woman take off her high-heeled shoes so she could walk. It wouldn't take much more inebriation to forget to carry them.

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  6. Good point, Anonymous. The demon drink could be behind several of these abandoned-footwear incidents. Changing the subject, where's me specs? I had them in the pub, that much I know.

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