I thought about what to put on my feet, and the simple answer seemed to be my walking boots. It was a wise decision. My pedometer says I walked 40,000 steps, which is rubbish, but if you include the dancing and jigging and bouncing, not to mention the standing, I gave my feet a fair workout over fourteen hours. I had thought about sandals, but rejected them in case there was a lot of jostling - the first casualty is feet.
Looking around most people had the same idea as me. Mainly trainers (but I wear my walking boots in situations I would otherwise wear trainers), a few walking boots, especially ones like mine that look a bit like trainers from a distance. Sensible shoes. I was surprised at how many wore open sandals, in the event, however, I would not have been troubled by being stood on. I was even more surprised by the number who wore flip flops.
I only saw three people in heels. Two were together, one in high platforms, one in stilettoes. I spotted them just as we entered the park. They were both hobbling. This was at quarter to three. I would have loved to have seen them at half eleven.
I did see one woman in bare feet, which struck me as utterly stupid. I didnt actually see any broken glass on the ground, but there was a lot of debris, and I wouldn't have chanced it.
Actually, I was shocked and appalled by the huge amount of litter. It's equivalent to 3 kilos per person. I plead guilty to about forty cigarette butts, but the rest of our rubbish was put into a carrier bag and deposited in a bin on Brixton Road. Some litter is inevitable, but the fact that people were deliberately dumping it - "someone else's problem" - makes me wonder if they're animals. Mind you, some of them were dumping their half-eaten dead-animal-and-food-poisoning concoctions. I'm surprised they didn't attract more flies.
During the entire day, I did not see one anti-smoking Nazi pull that disgusting face they normally do these days. Probably didn't even notice. In my experience it normally happens next to a busy road. Perhaps, in the absence of traffic, there was no unpleasant immediately perceptable pollution in the air to blame on the mistargeted but easy scapegoat. Everywhere I went I thought I had serendipitiously encountered the Secret Smoking Room. But it turned out that everywhere I went a quarter to a third of people were smoking.
Quite extraordinary to go fourteen hours without a confrontation with one irrational bullying Anti-Smoker.
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