Ankle boots are that rare oddity of being an item of fashion as well as
being practical but do not pass that piece of information down to your
teenage daughter as this will give her the same queasy feeling as
discovering that your musical tastes coincide.
This type of shoe not only looks good but the ankle one of the most
vulnerable parts of human physiology. Above the delicate ankle and foot
is a six foot frame weighing anything up to forty kilos or more and even
the clinically obese can stand on their arrangement of over two hundred
fine bones and sinew.
In rugby one of the finest tackles is known as the ankle tap wherein a
last ditch flip of the foot will send the charging giant forward flat on
his face hopefully just inches from the try line.
The Ancient Greeks had an expression to describe a weakness that we
still use today. Everyone, they expounded, has an Achilles heel. This is
a weak spot and there is no weaker joint in the body apart perhaps from
the wrist than the ankle.
Down the leg and along the arm nerve cells send information to pick up a
pen or drive a car, to kick a football or just stand upright.
How many objects can you think of as heavy as a fully grown human with a
footplate of just a few square inches that can balance upright without
falling over?
The equation gets a little muddled when copious amounts of wine are
involved but even then it takes a shed load to result in a fall.
Any A & E Doctor will tell you that one of the saddest sights on a
Saturday night in any City in the UK is the arrival of pissed up young
girls with broken ankles. Wearing high heels and disco dancing is a
recipe for a dreadful disaster.
Young girls with broken ankles think of it as a battle scar and try to
laugh it off. What the experienced doctor knows is that by the time that
girl is a woman in her forties the chances are that arthritic problems
will have set in.
Even in times of war the Germans and the Russians wore boots and
consequently suffered far fewer ankle injuries than the Commonwealth
forces in their shoes cum boots.
The Ancient Greeks knew that a successful army was a well-trained and
well equipped army. Napoleon added that an army needs food in its
stomach. It is a fact that what you wear gives confidence and not for
nothing do some high powered executives wear the very best of everything
even if nobody else sees it.
One blue chip company Chairman admits to wearing brand new silk shirts,
cotton socks and underwear every single day. He throws them in the
rubbish bin at the end of the day but wearing new gives great confidence
to face the management.
