Pole Position

There was a time when Britain was literally the most powerful country on earth. We ruled the waves through a combination of relentless administration and brutal suppression. Fortunately, we live in more enlightened times. Since the mid twentieth century, the British empire has gradually been dismantled and Britain has tended more towards its place in the world as a country of middling global significance.
Of course, there are many in this country who view the loss of empire with great regret: seeming to believe that we as a nation have a right to lord it over others and plunder their resources because, well because we used to. There can't really be any other justification for it than that. Unless of course you are a racist. It is very likely that the Nazi appropriation of many features of the British empire (concentration camps, a belief in racial superiority, etc.) was one of the major influences on the change in policy towards empire in the later half of the twentieth century. Once the Nazis had demonstrated that the logical conclusion of the mindset that justified empire was morally and ethically repulsive, there was no real hope for it. So why do so many people still cling to it as something to be remembered fondly? It's all about prestige.
The other day, bonkers-rich-man-who-must-have-the-biggest-carbon-footprint-in-the-world, Bernie Ecclestone suggested that there be one of his grand prix races in the centre of London. Instantly myriad talking heads were on hand to blather on about how great this would be and how great it would be for London. The latter is where they're wrong: it would be great for Britain, but London doesn't really need such gimmicks. Through a combination of factors, London has managed to retain its position as a truly world class city. World class cities don't need gimmicky sporting events, certainly not any new ones, and certainly not ones that will most likely require a change in the law. When it needed it, London invented the modern marathon, we've got the Olympics (for better or worse - probably better on balance), but a city centre grand prix just feels a bit gimmicky, a bit cheap. I know that grand prix are anything but cheap - they are largely the preserve of the tasteless rich - but new grand prix are for countries that have more money than cultural heritage or are really keen for the world to forget that their governments are illegitimate thugs. Britain is none of the above, so it just feels a bit desperate to be considering pandering to such a spectacle in one of the world's great cities.
As a nation that desires prestige, we should be looking to big events to demonstrate that we're still capable of the sort of organisation that in the past allowed us to brutally suppress a fifth of the world's population. As a nation, we should also look to promote cities other than London, cities that actually need promotion. Have a grand prix round the centre of Birmingham, or round spaghetti junction, that would probably be more exciting. Bernie Ecclestone wouldn't be interested in this though, as it wouldn't have London's famous landmarks as it's backdrop. However, none of these landmarks needs a fast car driving in front of it to make it a destination, so London will gain nothing from such an event but traffic chaos. The Olympics have already proven that major sporting events do not add tourist numbers to London, as people not going to the event who might otherwise have visited have stayed away. If we are to have such an event in a British city, make it a city whose landmarks will benefit from being a backdrop. When tourists flock to visit the famous Bullring chicane, then we might actually have done something useful about Britain's prestige.
I guess even then I'm a bit meh about showing off our country by promoting a nearly redundant technology. This is fairly typical of the way in which this country has not helped itself to avoid decline: clinging on to the prestige of the past blinds us to the possibilities of the future. Why don't we have an electric car race around a city, in an elevated transparent tunnel - 360 degree racing. That would be genuinely exiting, progressive and wouldn't stop the city from functioning. Then we wouldn't be 'the country with the budget San Marino', we'd be the country with the race of the future. Prestige is what you make it, not what you borrow from mental old rich people.

Prorata

So it occurred to me in the gym last night that the gym is one of the greatest signifiers of 21st century first world decadence. It is an embarrassing fact that we have places to go where we burn off the excess food we have eaten so that we do not look as outwardly greedy as we actually are. This all came to me after I noticed someone had left a bottle of Original Source lime shower gel in the shower. The bottle was almost empty, but there was probably enough left in it for me to have a shower. Clearly it's owner could not be bothered with the hassle of carrying it round just for one more shower. Now, as the label clearly states, 40 limes go into making one bottle of Original Source, meaning that whoever bought that bottle wasn't fussed about the last lime or so. Somewhere in the world a child has rickets for want of a lime. Is Original Source the most decadent shower gel we can buy, not because it is particularly expensive, but because it uses ridiculous amounts of raw materials that would otherwise be food? I'm sure Original Source is not the most decadent shower gel but it illustrates my point more clearly than many more decadent washing products.
Statistical scientists recently calculated that the impact of feeding all the obese people in the world is the equivalent to feeding 1 billion extra non-obese people. Whilst some might see this as just an excuse to have another go at fat people, I see it as a new approach to Malthusian statistics. Whilst we are all worrying about our carbon footprint, we have apparently no concern about what consequences our consumption has for the ability of others to live comfortable lives. Surely, if we can calculate how much of iithe earth's resources obese people use up we can also calculate a sustainability mean: an average of consumption that each person currently alive would be allowed if the world's (sustainable) resources were shared out equally. Surely it could then easily become a middle class aspiration to consume below the mean.
Obviously for it to be simple and measurable, we would need to create a unit of consumption, but this would be easy enough, we could just create a grain equivalent. It would not work in same manner as carbon trading, as there is nothing essentially to trade. Your grainscore is simply a positive of negative measure of your consumption against the mean. This does mean that unlike carbon trading, the wealthy cannot buy off their guilt. Equally, as it is not necessarily tied to monetary wealth, it cannot be seen necessarily as a wealth redistribution. However, it could be used for a form of resource redistribution, tax rates could be based on annual grainscore indexes rather than income or out of date house prices, with a portion of the tax levied going to international development budgets targeted at redistributing resources.
Obviously I can see a number of flaws in this instantly, most worryingly that it could encourage over-farming, or unethical land/animal management. However if the unit of grain is set at a sustainable level, producing more of a commodity for the land available would count against the producer's grainstore balance. In this way profit is not punished but profiteering is. Such issues could be ironed out, indeed the problems presented by resolving them may provide many resource solutions that had not been considered before.
The other obviously bloated question is why would anyone bother with an index of guilt that isn't obligatory. The answer to this one is easy: in the 'first world', people love that kind of thing. They can't get enough of measuring their guilt, and when they finally do, they try and impose it on everyone else. Calculating your carbon footprint has gone from being a middle class Sunday afternoon guilt generation exercise to an essential part of the commercial strategy of every major multinational. There's nothing to say that calculating your grainscore can't do the same. The world is facing a large number of issues around resource scarcity, and we need to raise awareness these issues. If something like a grainscore will start a debate, well that's a start.

Preterition

When I was a kid my mum used to buy me shoes that I would grow into. If, over the year, my feet failed to grow their predicted amount, the resulting toe vacuum would cause unsightly front shoe collapse. Why then, as an adult would anyone buy shoes with space deliberately built in?
You would think such examples as these would fill me with righteous indignation or contempt, but they just sadden me. They make me realise that you can't really try on a pair of these kind of shoes properly, as when you get to the bit where you pinch the toe and say "uh yeah, that's my toe there" can never happen. Unless you have the oddest shaped feet in the world, you're only ever going to be approximating a fitting of a pair of shoes like these. Just one more reason never to buy them. 

Passive

Most of my observations about modern male footwear concern shoes that have probably been actively chosen. However, there are many men out there who don't really chose their shoes, they simply allow them to happen. As a child I was like this: knowing I wouldn't be allowed the shoes I wanted (which to be fair to my mum were generally overpriced trainers), I would settle on the first pair of shoes that were not ugly with a firm intention to do serious damage to them at the earliest opportunity. I was only weened off this abusive relationship by my first pair of DMs (incidentally the first pair of shoes I bought for myself), which probably had some form of accelerated wear applied to them initially, but subsequently required much care and attention to preserve their hard-worn appearance. Perhaps some men just accept their ugly shoes and then form a sort of grudgingly co-dependent relationship, a sort of addiction that carries on into adulthood. This may explain why even grownup men appear reluctant to polish their ugly shoes.
There are some men however, who appear either blissfully ignorant of their nonchant* for bad footwear or fully accepting of it. Thus they drift into middle age compulsively buying and caring for shoes that are not the most ugly, but still pretty duff.
I snapped these prime examples just the other day. They are, in many ways an inoffensive pair of shoes, but that doesn't stop them being woefully ugly. The snub-nose, the nasty welded-on rubber sole and the casual lack of attention to detail that screams 'mass produced' all add up to making them an affront decent shoemaking. I guess, in their defence, they were probably cheap, but cheap shoes are a false economy. Well made, well maintained shoes last a dog's age. Fact.
I guess many people who wear shoes like these would say that they're not bothered that they don't look very nice, "I'm not at a fashion parade," they might say, or they may declare that the convenience of buying and owning one cheap pair of shoes at a time outweighs the cost implications. Having shown such little interest in personal appearance and sustainability, I wonder what else these people don't care about. Yes I am saying that a lack of care about your footwear may indicate that you have a generally sloppy and reprehensible approach to life, the planet and your fellow human beings. I'm saying shape up bad shoe people, the rest of us are carrying you no further.

*Nonchant - a subverted penchant; a persistent preference arrived at through a concerted lack of active decision making.