New Boots!
"Indestructible?"
"Well, hard-wearing, anyway. I've only had these," I gesture towards them, "for a couple of years and they're trashed."
"The people who want indestructible boots, the New Agers and travellers and the like, they go for the German army boots." He gestures in turn towards a box full of them marked at �29.99.
"The leather on the German boots," his mate joins in, pausing from stacking boxes, "it never goes."
"Do you have them new?" I ask. I'm not a New Ager, I'll have him know. Besides, second-hand boots?
You can't get them, apparently. They cost the German government �140 new without several levels of expense and mark up that would come into play for the retail market. They'd end up costing the best part of �300.
I concede; second hand boots it is. We find a pair that barely look worn. They feel terrific, instantly better than my old boots - I'm already thinking of them as my old boots - ever did.
As we make our way to the till I mention that before my present pair I'd had a pair of British army boots which had been OK but hadn't really lasted either and that when I came to replace them they'd been discontinued.
"That's why they were discontinued - they didn't last. They've copied the German design now, but they're not as good. Still cost the government �140, but they haven't got the leather."
"Couldn't they just phone up the Germans and ask where they get theirs?"
"Nah, it's all politics. There's a buying agents - where is it? - out
at Bradley Stoke, and whenever they can they have to buy stuff from
this country."