Thanks for the link to the court shoes. Most of them were pumps, but some were extreme enough to be called "high heels" over here (yes, the USA. Many people shorten the term to "heels." As in, "She was wearing blue-sequined heels when she turned her ankle so disastrously."

Just a word of warning, C-flat. Better not use the term "twat" if you come here for a visit.

HuwG: Thanks for the interesting quotations from "Rising Sun." I doubt if I would put up with Crichton's style for long, because of the jargon and because I dislike books written in the present tense.

I'm sure Anne is right about the Crimplene layer in landfills. She ought to inform the relevant archeological societies. By the way, my husband does a certain amount of landfill work, and he says that when landfills are drilled to see what's in them, they contain foot after foot after foot of - newspaper!

We still haven't explained the phrase "Tears of Allah" that I mentioned in the first post.