From an early age, we were all told to sit up properly and to keep our backs straight. I did indeed have to parade up and down the hallway with books on my head, dodging Action Man parts (which I still think were put there deliberately). As a consequence, I am also able to get in and out of a low-slung sports car without flashing to the world. Although, unlike Britney and Lilo, I do generally take the added precaution of wearing underclothing.

Anyway, I've had to walk about looking at the floor. And it's brought to my attention something that I had only dimly been aware of until now. People no longer polish their shoes. Nor do they get them mended. And it would appear that shoe trees are an instrument of antiquity. Shoes are dull and scuffed. Heels are worn down to the metal pins. That click-click of high heels you hear is the sound of cobblers tutting in despair. Ladies appear quite content to walk about with the white of the plastic heel showing through on a scratched shoe. And people seem happy to leave salt marks all over their footwear. If it were not for the lovely massage therapist who uncricked my neck midweek, I would have been out with the brushes and Cherry Blossom, volunteering to do them myself.

But raising my view upwards hasn't actually helped me that much. Now painfully aware of the nation's inability to keep their shoes up to scratch, I began to notice just how badly people walk. The shufflers who don't lift their feet and scuff along the road. (Although I have found that a sharp "Lift your feet up young lady" in their general direction does the trick. And before you think that I have taken it upon myself to correct the world, I was saying it to two teenagers of my acquaintance when we were out shopping in Ocean Terminal. They were determinedly refusing to lift their Ugg boots from the flooring in a tweenage attempt to be cool. But it did manage to stop a nearby posse of slouchers in their tracks as well.)

Then there are the clumpers. Young women who have bought wonderful, fabulously designed high heels. Shoes that they have obviously spent quite a bit of money on. Shoes that they can't walk in for love nor money. They end up like drag queen cybermen, galumphing around the streets. It's no real wonder that they end up with bunions, hammer toes and calluses by the time they're 20.

The reason that Carrie Bradshaw can go all day and night in her Manolos is because she actually walks properly in her shoes – putting her heel down first and then moving through the foot. It's a fairly basic skill, but one that the yoof of today seem to have completely lost.

Mother maintains – and actually, I think she's right on this one – that you can always judge a person by their shoes. And, from looking around, it seems that I am consorting with a bunch of bone idle wasters.