Soft focus

This post about about something my new camera can do that has produced an intriguing result.

The Panasonic LX100 is a serious camera, intended for experienced photographers, but Panasonic have still included two buttons that make it simple for casual users to get either easy shots, or to amuse themselves with ready-made creative effects. So there's a button that will plunge the camera into completely-automatic mode, where literally all you have to do is switch it on and press the shutter button. That's of no interest to me. The other button presents you with twenty-two special-effect 'filters', to make your shots look 'different'.

That filter button is easy to dismiss as a sop to beginners, and not much more than a gimmick. And I hadn't given it any priority in my first ten days of ownership - I was much more concerned to get up to speed on how the more essential controls worked, and whether I liked their out-of-factory settings. But in the last couple of days I've been investigating that filter button more closely.

Pressing the filter button is the way to get the camera to take black-and-white photos, and you get several B&W options, including straight no-nonsense monochrome, dramatic high-contrast monochrome, grainy atmospheric monochrome, and all-monochrome-except-for-one-colour, a colour you can choose from the scene in front of you. Such as the blue of my pilates mat in this indoor shot:

I can't see many applications for this kind of picture, but it might be a way of locating something in a chaotically untidy scene, if that something has a definite single colour. Say a pill you dropped onto the floor, or worse, onto a thick pile carpet. You'd just set up the colour of another pill, then shoot the scene and carefully examine the result at sufficient magnification.

There are all kinds of special-effects filters for regular colour shots too, and not just bog-standard Sepia renditions. Not the kind of effects I'd personally use on-camera. I'd prefer to create them on the laptop afterwards using Curves, and applying my own 'artistic' notions, instead of adopting something already worked out for me.

But there is also a soft focus filter. Ah! Now that can be genuinely useful, for softening hard edges, and concealing or disguising blemishes in portraiture. It can easily create an artificial 'dreamy mood', which might be appropriate for certain shots, though it's an effect very easily overused.

There used to be (speaking now of interchangeable lenses for film SLRs) such a thing as soft-focus lenses, in which the softening effect could be controlled, and in professional hands could be made as subtle as desired. My new camera was doing it with software, and I'd get just the one sort of softening on offer. All the same, worth investigation!

Here are the results from my afternoon walks at Waggoners Wells and the Devil's Punch Bowl. First, the unfiltered me, all stark and jagged:

Next, a shot using the on-camera soft-focus filter, in strong sunshine:

Hmm! Quite a pronounced softening effect - but I still look recognisable, even though the many skin blemishes have largely disappeared. I like what it has done for my hair. I particularly like the 'painted' appearance of the trees in the background, which would have been nicely out of focus anyway, with a good bokeh, but now seem somewhat improved. This is a shot to place on a dating website. It flatters in an acceptable way, and is not a complete lie.

But this next shot is a gross lie! This time I was in shade, with the light flat and even:

Oh dear! Who is this elfin creature? If you click on the shot and have a good look at it, you can see it really is me, but as I might have been twenty-five years ago. I was never so pretty, and certainly am not now. It's a thoroughly dishonest picture.

However, although it's too seductively dreamy and flattering to be true, I still like the shot as a 'might have been' kind of picture. And as a quick way of assessing the effect of professionally-applied make-up - which I'm assuming would attempt to create such a look. So if I had bought a fantastic wedding-guest outfit, and was trying it on, and wanted to see how I'd look with my face changed from jagged to smooth, then a soft-focus selfie would give me a useful preview.

This picture is really rather fascinating, isn't it? And perfectly OK, provided you keep a very firm grip on reality and don't start believing that soft-focus is a legitimate technique for all occasions, and that the results are true to life! 

I may however offer to take a picture like this of all my friends, and email them a copy to keep, and take encouragement from. 

Demons

Before I went to the Devil's Punch Bowl (featured in my last post) I visited Waggoners Wells, another beauty spot not far away. This is a deep valley that contains a series of 'hammer ponds', the result of damming a stream to form a number of lakes strung in a line, each a little lower than the one above. The water would drive mills and (in old Sussex at least) provide motive power for hammers, beating iron from the primitive furnaces into ingots. In the eighteenth century and before, the Wealden counties noisily mined and smelted the local iron ore, for use locally by blacksmiths for various agricultural purposes, though some iron would have been sent to the shipbuilding centres on the coast if suitable means were available, such as a navigable river or (later on) a canal. The muddy, rutted roads would have been useless for such movement.

All is very peaceful at Waggoners Wells today. I first found out about this place in 1978, when a girl I got to know called Sarah took me walking there. After 1980, I often went there with my Mum and Dad - on a Sunday, say. And once I'd met W---, we'd visit the spot with step-daughter A---, who was then a tree-climbing youngster. Here's A--- in 1982, aged eleven, draped exhausted over a bough next to one of the hammer ponds at the Wells:

And later that same day, in the back of Dad's car, looking into my lens:

A--- had an affinity for water. She was an excellent swimmer, and I don't know how many hours I spent taking her to the swimming baths in Wimbledon so that she could practice her thirty lengths, or whatever the current goal was. She loved getting wet at every opportunity - any bit of water would do. Here she is in 1983, sitting in a stream at a ford on Frensham Common, just a few miles away from Waggoners Wells:

And taking the plunge in a pond at Aldermaston in Berkshire, on a hot day out only two weeks later:

Happy days! They felt like a long carefree summer that could never end. But of course they did. Nothing is forever. Children grow up, and take their lives off in directions you can't follow. And adults get sadder, dragged down by back luck, bad choices, and their own weaknesses. Not many survive with hope in their hearts, a cheerful smile on their face, and ambitions still within reach.

Waggoners Wells seemed unchanged when I saw it again two days ago:

Still waters. But with life within. Big grey fish swam lazily. Mallard ducks paddled around, and preened themselves. I was fascinated by the ripples they made in the water, which the new Panasonic LX100 captured rather well:

A stone came into view, commemorating the purchase in 1919 of the Wells and surrounding countryside for the nation by the then quite-new National Trust, with money donated in the will of Sir Robert Hunter, a founding member of the Trust.

And then something else, that just for a second gave me a shock.

Things catch my photographer's eye all the time, and sometimes a picture will emerge as you walk along. Well, I was walking past a nearby tree stump, rotted and hollow, but like a million others. And then it took on a human-like shape, like a woodland demon rearing up out of the ground, and ready to roar at me:

  

My goodness! It was startling! But only for an instant. Worth a shot, though.

It reminded me of another 'demon' up at Riseholm in Lincolnshire, in the grounds of the Agricultural College there. Riseholm - set in the countryside just north of Lincoln city - was once a country estate for the Bishop of Lincoln, and there is a fine house next to a lake - as seen in this old map, and this shot of mine from 2003:

I visited Riseholm several times in the late 1990s, and on into 2000. Although it did not involve promotion to the next grade up, nor any pay increase, I accepted the chance to become Deputy Officer In Charge of Sutton District in south London - in effect the District Inspector when the DI himself was absent or on holiday. Which meant covering for him (as 'the boss') for maybe two months of the year. It was a good deal. I got enhanced status with the Inland Revenue - the pinnacle of my career so to speak. I filled the role pretty well, too. At least, ably helped by Christine, the DI's secretary, and a host of other people, I fielded a lot of stuff that cropped up, signed for a few things, and made no dreadful blunders. No more was wanted.

And I had the chance to go on some essential senior management training at the Revenue's bespoke modern training centre at Riseholm. Named Lawress Hall, and opened only in 1993, it was a big, state-of-the-art training centre, essentially a very decent hotel with suites of training rooms, designed to give the people sent there a concentrated but enjoyable experience without outside distractions.

I went there again, sneakily and unofficially, with M--- in 2003, but not since. It's still in use in 2015, which is surprising - even a dozen years ago, in-house training venues were going out of fashion and being sold off, becoming regular hotels or apartments. But this one was always well-situated for Revenue people from all over the country to travel to. Still, I wonder if the sums still add up. The Revenue (now HMRC) may have saved zillions on older training facilities - which could now be discarded - and just as much on the ballooning cost of trainees' hotel accommodation. But that was offset by their often humongous travel costs.

Here are some 1996 shots of a model of Lawress Hall, the actual building from outside, and shots inside a training room, from a team-building week I attended. I was part of the newly-formed NDCIO - the fancifully-named North Downs Corporate Investigation Office. I had been head-hunted and persuaded to join. It was a huge mistake.

Below is a chart I made on my own initiative one morning, as a team exercise developed. Someone pointed out to me that I was wrong to do anything without prior discussion with the other members of the team, and full team approval. I pointed out that the thing was useful. But I'm sure this individualism (and determined insubordination) was deemed a crime, and noted for the future.

I had an unhappy time with the NDCIO. I put my foot in it from the start by not wanting to trek into London from Sussex at some shatteringly early hour, simply to travel up to Lincolnshire in the 'team car'. The chap in charge of the NDCIO was obsessed by his own brand of 'teamwork', and I was not minded to kow-tow and play his game. If you understand the NDCIO as a promotion-machine, in which you had to suck up to whoever mattered, say nothing about rather unconventional and doctrinaire (and, to me, inefficient) ways of working, and finally reap your reward, then you'll appreciate what I was up against. I kicked back at it all.

Within months, the man in charge and myself had fallen out big time. But I'd struck an agreement to detach myself. By then I was almost ill with high blood pressure. I was also the most unpopular person in Croydon. My well-known departure was seen throughout South London as a failure and setback for the NDCIO - a high-profile, flagship initiative, with myself cast in the role of sabateuse. Even though the people who had steered clear of joining would be thinking 'there but for the Grace of God I could have gone...' So I knew I had secret sympathy. But officially I was branded a maverick and a wrecker. I made the best of it.

And yet I'd stood my ground. I'd not surrendered.

And within four years I was, as I say, installed as Deputy OIC at Sutton - surely a strong sign of favour, of reinstatement, and of confidence in my fort-holding abilities. But the inevitable end-of-year 'failure to meet my performance agreement' cost me a jolly good pay increase for 1996/97 - and eventually lowered my pension by a few hundred pounds a year. Not good.

Well, it's just history now. Or is it a lurking demon, ready to rise again?

Back to that real demon at Riseholm. In the summer of 1996, students at the Agricultural College (also at Riseholm) constructed a frightening-looking 'demon' out of a tree stump in a small wood near the lake. It was made 'realistic' by having a grinning face, with mad eyes, pointed ears, and green leaves for hair; arms; and a thumping big hammer in its hand, raised to strike:

Not exactly a pleasant sight in daylight. In the dusk, pretty scary!

I saw it at its best. Within months, the ravages of wind and rain had tamed it, and two years later it was just a misshapen tree stump. A pity, for it was quite a creation. And in an odd sense, my only real friend during that uneasy team-building week. I'm glad I took a picture.

Trusted

As everyone knows, I have embarked on a solitary mode of life for my last years. I'll play the end game alone. I do it unencumbered of course - almost no legacy people or issues from earlier times - and I see that as a crucial advantage. Nobody is going to get in the way of whatever I might want to do in the time ahead.

But on the other hand, I am horribly exposed. I have no safety nets. I have no close family to watch over my welfare. In particular, no children of my own.

No children... Although I feel relieved never to have experienced the pains of childbirth, and the hard work of bringing children up, and the heartbreak of seeing them wither and die (metaphorically or literally), I also feel that not having children has in some way put a limit on my wisdom - and certainly a limit on my understanding of what it is to be a human being. Yes...I feel that I've missed something very important. It's not a matter for aching regret, but I know I've missed experiences that I really ought to have had.

And consequently I've never become used to young children. And yet children are very important indeed. It's such a responsibility for an adult, to interact with children. The exchange must be of very high quality, be it ever so casual. Children see and hear and sense so much. Anything - everything - might have a lasting impact. A misplaced word, or gesture, or look, or attitude, could hurt a child, warp them. Therefore - speaking as an amateur where children are concerned - I contemplate meeting them with trepidation.

All that said, whenever an encounter is thrust upon me, I do cope quite well. But it still feels like passing some test. Well, I think I passed again yesterday.

The National Trust owns large tracts of beautiful heathland in the south-western corner of Surrey. It spills over into part of Hampshire. It's centred on the Devil's Punch Bowl, a deep valley gouged into high country - actually it was made by the gentle and gradual process of 'spring-sapping', and this is the biggest example of it in Britain.

I hadn't intended to go out yesterday - but the sun was shining brightly, I fancied a scenic walk, and I wanted to take Fiona out on a longish spin, so that I could study that mysterious humming noise in various driving conditions, pending assessment at the dealer's today. (Of which more in another post to come) So off we sped. Arriving around 1.00pm, I was very lucky to get parked: the Devil's Punch Bowl is a magnet for Londoners starved of fresh air. But I had no problem getting a modest (but yummy) tuna-and-mayo jacket potato lunch at the NT café there:

Thus fortified, I strolled out to tackle one of the marked walks, what seemed to be a straightforward three-to-four-miler. The air was pure. The sky was blue, of radiant hue. What a fabulous day for a bit of a hike! You could see across the valley, to where the noisy A3 road used to be. It's buried out of sight in a long dual-carriageway road tunnel now, leaving the valley peaceful.

There was lots of purple heather.

And Rowan trees too, aka Mountain Ash trees, with their clusters of bright orange berries.

Walking quite briskly, I overtook some people, and was overtaken by others. Eventually I caught up with a family - thirty-something parents, one of them pushing a buggy with a baby in it, and two young children - a girl and a boy. The person I took to be Daddy looked doubtful about which path the take next. I had a NT map I'd picked up from the café, and although I'd already found it less than clear, I stopped to consult with them. We were both looking for a turn-off that seemed to be close by, but as yet out of sight.

Map in hand, I walked slightly ahead, the children walking with me, all of us looking for the turn-off. The little girl explained that she was called Christine, and she was six; her younger brother was called Josh, and he was five. She told me about their baby sister. I said my name was Lucy. I asked about their parents. She told me her Mummy's name. Oh, what was her Daddy's name? 'He's not my Daddy,' she said firmly, and added, 'My Daddy's not with us. He lives in Portugal. That man is called David.'

A potential crisis! I sensed an unbreakable bond between this little girl and her real father, that she missed him dreadfully, and that she was going to insist on being his daughter and no-one else's, no matter what. On the other hand, I knew something about being a step-parent, even if it was hands-on for only six years, and over thirty years in the past. I could see with sympathy that David was never going to win this little girl over, and at best they would have to agree on a truce - and no pretence about his true status. She would never concede anything there.

Josh, on the other hand, seemed cool about the entire situation. And that was of course his decision. His elder sister could have her own views. I thought children of their age quite old enough to decide for themselves, just as I had been.

We'd walked ahead quite a bit. Glancing back, I said to Christine and Josh, 'We've left Mummy and David a long way behind. I really don't want to get out of sight of them.' To which Christine said, 'Oh, that's all right - we're with you!' Which absolutely socked me on the jaw. So: they saw me as a parent-substitute, a completely competent and resourceful adult, someone to be trusted. What a compliment! They had indeed read me right, but on the shortest of acquaintances; and I wondered what it was in a child's perception that enabled him or her to feel safe and comfortable with an unknown person. How did they know who would protect them, and not harm them? Because children can and do pick out such adults, and run to them instinctively.

I was still pondering this when the turn-off, a path leading downhill, suddenly appeared. We stopped, and waited for Mummy, David and the baby to catch up. Then we walked down towards a stream with a plank bridge across it. Soon afterwards, a house appeared.

It was set back from the path, and looked very mysterious. Christine wondered if it was called Gnome Cottage, as one of the houses on the route back passed a building of that name. I said no, we hadn't got as far as Gnome Cottage yet. But we still agreed that this house, set in its own meadow, was a fine home, although it was hard to see how you could reach it except by walking the rough track.

Just beyond the stream, the path headed uphill, and I received further education. Josh forged ahead, but Christine went more slowly, and told me a confidence: their dog (there was a dog) had splashed her with muddy water from the stream at the bottom of the valley. Some had gone on her legs and white dress. Did I think Mummy would be angry? I said the same thing had happened to me. The mud would soon dry in the sun, and then it could be rubbed off very easily. It wouldn't spoil the dress. Mummy wouldn't be angry at all. Then she said I looked like someone 'on an adventure'. 'Oh, do you really think so?' I replied. I was wearing a longish blue denim skirt, a flowery blue top, and I had my orange cross-body bag with me. I also had my black Skechers GoWalk walking shoes on. But no hat! I wondered if this 'adventuress' or 'explorer' look had been one reason why the two children had thought me so capable as a walking companion.

Then she said, 'Oh, what are those purple flowers?' It was a big clump of heather. 'It's called heather, ' I explained. Didn't you know?' 'No, I've never seen heather before,' she said, and ran back to Mummy and David to tell them about it. This argued of course that they were a family who lived in a London suburb, on a rare outing in the country.

Then another incident. The dog was excited, and behaving as if he had never seen heather either, scampering to and fro; drunk on all the strange scents, I suppose. A worried-looking man with a teenage son approached. He spoke to me. Could I kindly put the dog on a lead, because his son was very nervous about dogs. The son, possibly as old as nineteen, certainly looked jittery about the dog running here and there. I wondered if this was a father taking his special-needs son out for a walk? I said it wasn't actually my dog, but of course I'd get hold of him, and restrain him while they got by. A look of deep gratitude flooded the man's face. He really didn't want to explain why he had to make a fuss.

And do you know, the dog obediently came to me when I called, and I was able to put my fingers into his leather collar and hold him quietly. Me, who had never owned a dog and considered myself inept with them!

Mummy and David caught up. We consulted as to where we might be on the map. Josh saw a finger post that said 'Café one and three-quarters miles'. A long hot tramp yet, then. There was a seat close by. Mummy announced that they'd have a pit stop. So I left them at the seat, wishing them a nice walk back.

I thought about how this encounter with those two children had gone. Had I passed the test? I supposed so. I couldn't see any glaring fault in my demeanour, words spoken, or things done. It was surely a boost to my self-confidence. But I was certain that easy conversation with lively, confident children was entirely different from coping with a child who had problems. So I thought of that father, and admired him for showing that beautiful valley to his son, despite all the risks involved.

A strange humming noise

If you have ever seen the short 1956 comedy film The Case of the Mukkinese Battle Horn - a big screen vehicle for The Goons, and according to Wikipedia unexpectedly popular at the time (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_of_the_Mukkinese_Battle_Horn) - you'll recall a scene where the police - on the trail of the stolen horn - are knocking on the door of elderly befuddled couple Minnie and Henry, and half-deaf Minnie is querulously asking Henry 'What's that strange knocking noise, Henry?', and Henry, also half-deaf, is saying to her 'I can't hear you, Min! There's a strange knocking noise!' Well, it's hilarious to watch, even if I haven't put over the comedy element very well. The point is, my normally quite quiet car Fiona - a big posh Volvo - is making a strange humming noise as she travels along . And while it doesn't by any means drown out all other sounds, it's unwelcome - and so far unexplained.

I first noticed it after her annual service last May, two weeks before setting off for Scotland. The service was combined with her annual MOT, and I therefore expected the dealer to pay particular attention to fault-finding. And faults were found - or at least recommendations were made to get certain things seen to, even though Fiona did pass her MOT. They included fitting new brake rear discs and pads (which I expected; it was done a week later), and replacing a leaking metal turbo pipe and associated rubber hoses (not expected, but dealt with a few weeks later, after I returned from Scotland). At the service itself, I'd had the automatic gearbox fluid changed and four new tyres fitted. I'd also had the tracking checked. I like Fiona to be in tip-top condition, with nothing neglected.

In the two weeks after the service, but before heading north on holiday, I became aware of a humming sound that cut in around 40 miles per hour, and faded at 60 miles per hour. I put it down to that leaking turbo. I hadn't noticed it before - cars make many little noises, for various reasons and in various combinations, and like Minnie and Henry my hearing isn't the best for distinguishing between them, nor for saying where they might be coming from. This humming sound was odd, but never completely irritating, and there was the prospect that it would disappear when the turbo pipe was replaced. So I dismissed it from my mind.

But it didn't go when the pipe was replaced. So what was it?

A temporarily loud auto gearbox? I wondered whether fresh, clean, runny fluid would make the gearbox seem louder than usual. Didn't it seem louder when last changed three years ago? Then gradually quieter, as the fluid thickened up over the following 34,000 miles? Hmm.

The new rear brakes and pads? But I'd never had a humming sound from disc brakes and pads before. And there was nothing scraping or metallic about it, as there might be if a pad were lightly touching a disc. It sounded like the hum a roof rack makes, when going fast enough for the slipstream to make it sing. (But there was no roof rack fitted, nor anything obviously catching the wind) Besides, it seemed to be coming from the front of the car, so far as I could tell.

It couldn't be the turbo pipe, or one of the struts holding it into position. The entire assembly was shielded by the gravel plate underneath the front of the engine. So far as I could see, nothing was in catching the slipstream and making a noise. And of course the pipe itself wasn't now leaking. In any case, enquiry at the dealers at the time of pipe replacement established that a leaking pipe whistled rather than hummed.

That left only the tyres, presumably the new front pair. They were Continental CrossContact UHPs. The dealer had chosen them. I looked them up on the Internet. Ah, high-performance tyres, designed to give excellent grip. They certainly had a chunky tread pattern:

In contrast, the same-priced rear pair were Continental EcoContact5s, also selected by the dealer, also high-performance, but with low rolling-resistance to last longer. The tread pattern was much less chunky:

I'd merely specified 'Continental tyres as before, please!' but Continental had introduced a new range and the dealer had needed to chose substitutes for the old set of tyres. I thought the choice intelligent - front tyres with great grip were highly desirable for a car-and-caravan combo - three tons of hurtling metal, after all. And even when not towing, I noticed that cornering and general handling were wonderfully assured with these new tyres.

But was noise the trade-off? Or were at least the front pair noisy - at a certain speeds - when the air trapped in those deep grippy grooves might get squeezed, so as to set up a siren effect? I wondered. Maybe they were quiet on most cars, but not on mine. Fiona had the weight of its big heavy five-cylinder 2.4 litre diesel engine pressing down on those front tyres...

If it were just a less-than-optimal tyre/car match, then I was willing to put up with the humming noise till the front tyres wore out and could be replaced. At least I'd be getting terrific road grip meanwhile.

But then, with the next caravan holiday approaching fast, I made the mistake of looking up 'humming sounds' on the Internet. I wish I hadn't! I read stories in various forums about hard-to-track-down sounds. Horror stories. Stories that suggested that my car was highly likely to suffer from shot wheel bearings and self-destruct differentials. That ignorant and untrustworthy garages fumbled about, and were taking owners for a ride. That Volvo were rubbish. And that, inevitably, it would cost megabucks to get these things fixed.

I began to feel that not only had I been a stupidly hubristic to treat myself in the last few months to new clothes, a new red handbag, a new digital radio, and lately a new digital camera; but that all my expenditure for the rest of the year was now in jeopardy. I'd need that money to get Fiona fixed. No more holidays; all kinds of economies. Oh dear!

Well, I slept on it. The best thing to do. And then yesterday morning, now in a better frame of mind entirely, I drove over to the Volvo dealer's new premises in East Worthing. I spoke to a chap I trusted. He came out to the car and we discussed what was going on. He was reassuring. He thought it could only be tyre noise. If I was worried, I could phone the following Monday, and go for a test drive with the Service Manager (another man I knew and trusted), so that he could listen to the hum and its behaviour, and assess what the cause was.

So that's what I'll do.

It's very like going to the doctor with a nagging complaint about some little pain, not accepting the initial assurance given, and wanting a second opinion even if it may lead on to inconvenient treatment.

Watch this space.

Christian Louboutin shoes

No, I haven't bought any, honest! But I know someone who has, when she was in Paris. And I got to see them the other night.

The lucky young woman was Lily, the younger daughter of my French lady friend Véronique. We'd been eating out with the girls at a regular monthly get-together, and I came in for coffee afterwards - and for a sing-song around the piano. Here's Lily and myself discussing what to sing, and then doing the deed:

  

I get rather carried away with putting expressiveness into songs, but hey, anything goes late at night. The pictures were taken on my new camera, which Véronique ably wielded.

Afterwards we sat down for the coffee. On the TV was a programme about Christian Louboutin, intimately revealing him at work, at home, and at various receptions and events, creating and showing his latest collections. Shoes like his are completely out of my league. Quite apart from the cost (let's say £400 plus for a pair), there's the sky-high heels - and I don't wear heels. I don't own any shoes with a heel. They are all flat. Look: I don't need the extra height, I haven't got a good sense of balance, and I don't want to add further damage my feet, legs, and back. But of course, I don't mind supple young things under fifty enjoying the elegance heels provide, if that is their wish. 

Anyway, Lily rushed upstairs and came back down with a red bag containing a prized pair of Christian Louboutin shoes (though how afforded, I know not). By the way, I'm sorry for the strong yellow tinge to these shots - I forgot to adjust the white balance on the camera for indoor lighting. I so wish the photos had been taken in daylight, and I could reveal how nice they really were.

She took them out and held them up. They really were green, at least to my eyes - I have a hard time distinguishing between pale green and pale blue; but these were definitely green.

Ah, those signature red soles! I'm sure you wouldn't wear these on any surface where the soles might get scuffed or dirtied - it would spoil them! I have little doubt that, seen from behind, that red colour is a sex trigger to men, catching and holding the eye, and encouraging testosterone surge. As if the provocative posture induced by very high heels were not enough by itself. The shoes pander to lustful primeval fantasies then, as well as being desirably handmade, and indeed veritable works of art. I didn't ask Lily why she had bought them. It may have been no more than a yearning to own some gorgeous, high-status shoes for special occasions - rather like my buying that Prada handbag some years ago - where you get an ongoing thrill from possessing something extraordinary. 

Would I buy very expensive flat-heeled shoes? Well, I always keep in mind that cheap, badly-designed, badly-made, ill-fitting shoes do your feet harm - and they will look tatty, or fall apart, within a year. I think they are a false economy. Better to buy just a few good shoes, to cover a range of purposes from country strolls to posh hotels. If you can afford a famous name, or at least a particularly high-class look, then why not, provided they are comfortable and fit for purpose. 

Shoes are important. They protect your feet. They also get noticed, and say something about your taste, your spending priorities, and your current state of mind. They can also make you feel very good about yourself. A woman with a hundred shoes is a woman who has a pair of shoes for any mood and any occasion, and can signal her attitude to life and love with great subtlety. It's too bad that so many men see only the high heel, and draw a single coarse conclusion.

Zounds!

Don't you sometimes get bored with the same hackneyed swear words?

The classic example is the ubiquitous F-word, which has now become just a noise one makes, a kind of dog's bark, almost divorced from its literal meaning, and deriving its real force from how you say it, and in what circumstances. Thus a soft, half-whistled f**k... could express pleasant surprise at the disclosure of something impressive. And a strangled, agonised f**k...! might express one's feelings immediately after stubbing a toe.

How the mighty have fallen. When I was a little child in the 1950s, I never heard f**k being said, even though a generation must have learned to use it daily in the ranks of the armed forces fighting the Second World War, which had, after all, finished only a dozen years previously. There must have been a conspiracy never to swear hard in front of children. It may have been a turning-away from the brutalities of a long and exhausting war, which everyone came away from with memories they would rather forget, bullying sergeant-majors among them. To defend sergeant-majors, think about what a task they faced, turning a shambling assortment of blokes, some of them morons, some of them truculent, very few of them reasonable men keen to pay attention and learn, into a well-disciplined squad of smart-looking soldiers. They had only words and an intimidating manner at their disposal. Naturally they used the most effective words they could. I'm sure that f**k would have been among them, whenever an officer wasn't standing too close by.

If you had heard f**k in every order shouted at you in barracks, or elsewhere, all through the day for six years on end, I'm pretty sure you'd want to blank it all out once demobbed and back in civvy street. And so for a while, at least in the world I knew when young, and most certainly in my parents' house, f**k and similar words were never heard. They weren't on TV or the radio either. Nor could you read the F-word in books or papers. It was like the C-word, cancer, or the D-word, death, or the S-word, sex: utterly taboo in polite circles. Practically a blasphemy.

In fact the strongest swear words Dad used was 'blast'. And he didn't mean 'May God blast me dead', because he had parted company with religion when only a child. It was just an expressive noise he only occasionally uttered, because Dad was assured, clever and successful, good at most things, and mild of speech. He had little need to cover his mistakes with swear words. Mum was less self-assured when young, but had learned in adulthood to be assertive and to defend her opinions firmly. She relied on truth and plain-speaking, and, like Dad, had no need to swear in order to get her meaning across. She was also a relentless champion of high standards. Her strongest swear word, if Wayne and I ever drove her too far, was 'bugger', or rather 'you little bugger'. But that was as rare as a slap on the legs, for both my brother and myself were extraordinarily well-behaved. I certainly did not grow up in a tense home environment ringing with uncouth expletives. Nobody shouted. Nobody was rough or unloving in any way. I'm sure now that 'Not in front of the children' was a maxim my parents took to heart and practised lifelong. But I don't think it was simply a sham, and that they hissed and swore at each other in their intimate moments, when we children were asleep or out of the way.

I learned my knowledge of swear words at school instead. But I never got used to them, mainly because none of them could be spoken at home, and I could never practice their use. Besides, imbued with my parents' gentle-speech ethic, which was also expunged of all sexual references, I'd have been horribly embarrassed to say any of these words. If ever I did try - not at home, at school, say - they sounded stilted and awkward. And saying them would sometimes get me into trouble, myself not knowing all the nuances of usage. So, largely, I avoided all swearing, just as a timid virgin tries to avoid sex, keeping it as a fantasy indulgence for private moments only. I was deep into adulthood before my inexpert household DIY and gardening gave me battered thumbs and painful pricked fingers, and therefore proper, natural reasons to swear in earnest!

But back to swearing in general. I think the time has come to look again at some of the best swearing from days of old. We should mine past centuries for the full-blooded swearing that the prim Victorians frowned upon.

Three examples immediately come to mind: Zounds! Gadzooks! and 'Sblood! Admittedly they seem a bit theatrical, the sort of thing a fiery, swashbuckling character in a seventeenth-century stage play might come out with if insulted. What the Laughing Cavalier might say when not laughing. But so much better than f**k, wouldn't you say?

Zounds literally means 'God's wounds', and is a reference to the puncture marks made as Jesus's hands were nailed to the cross. Gadzooks! literally means 'God's hooks' and is another reference to those crucifixion nails. And 'Sblood! means 'God's blood', dripping down from Jesus's body. But of course a non-religious person can say Zounds! or Gadzooks! or 'Sblood! just the same as anyone devout. How colourful swearing could become!

And, of course, you could introduce new modern variants, such as 'Sphone! ('God's phone').

I'm not sure, though, whether many these old-time swear words could be used by women. I certainly associate most of them with bombast men brandishing swords, in wide-brimmed feathered hats and big clumpy boots - and rather touchy, short-tempered men at that. And not at all with amiable ladies of grace and sensibility. Perhaps not even a close study of play scripts between 1660 and 1700 will furnish us with a long list of female-friendly swear words. For one example, have a look at Colley Cibber's 1696 comedy Love's Last Shift (see https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=wwoOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA21&dq=love%27s+last+shift&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAGoVChMI1I3t3r3VxwIVBavbCh0hIgWB#v=onepage&q=love's%20last%20shift&f=false), from page 30 of the original printed script, where the ladies enter, and see if you can spot any of the ladies uttering a single swear word in the pages that follow. In contrast to the men, who are much freer with their speech. Mind you, it was a transitional play, shifting from the abandoned licentiousness of the initial Restoration to a style more suitable for the coming sober and moralising era. Mr Cibber was keeping up with the times. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colley_Cibber) That said, the play is about a virtuous lady who has a philandering husband, in which she pretends to be a prostitute for one night - in disguise of course, so that he does not realise it is her. He has a very good time with this 'stranger'. In the morning she reveals who she is, and puts it to him that if, incognito, she delighted him as a 'prostitute', she can just as easily delight him as his wife. He admits that he was wrong to ignore her simply because she was his wife, and henceforth means to be a diligent and faithful husband. A moral tale then. But no good swear words.

However, I remain in favour of more picturesque swearing, and move that the F-word be given a long-overdue RIP.