I was interested to read recently that the wife of a key Lehman Brothers executive reportedly had so many shoes she used to arrange tours of her collection for other executives’ wives.

Lehman Brothers, you may recall, is the finance company that subsequently went belly-up in the US’s biggest-ever bankruptcy filing.

I’m only hoping the wife in question still has those shoes and is now charging cold hard cash for the pleasure of seeing them because it might be the only income she will have.

At least she is now saved the bothersome task of deciding whether to take the seaplane or the helicopter into town. I know how much that would upset my mornings. By the time I’m through with the is-it-a-banana-smoothie-or-a-vegemite-toast-day debate I’m exhausted!

Anyway, her shoe tours did get me thinking. Always on the look out for ways to improve my own small-scale fiscal flow, I checked out my closet to see if my footwear would appeal at tour-bus level.

On close inspection, I have a pair of flat black sandals I bought in New York eight years ago; my custom-made RM Williams boots that are only seven; some suede wedges from Paris, circa 2005; some running shoes that should really be thrown away because they don’t smell right and a pair of formerly bejewelled jandals that are totally past their prime and actually give me a rash but I love them too much to replace them.

Nobody in their right mind would pay to see this motley collection, in fact, I would fork out cash to keep people away. I guess I’m just not a natural shoe person. I have clown-sized feet for a start and am prone to blisters so when I buy footwear, I’m in it for the long haul. I want lifers.

What this means is that my closet will never make a scenic stop, but do you know what? I may not have a lot of shoes but I remember the pleasure of buying every single pair I do have and some of them came from pretty cool places and have taken me to many more. That’s a thrill, for me, for free.