It had to happen: Now thongs are a health hazard

(The footwear type, also called Flip-flops in Britain, Plakkies in South Africa and Jandals in New Zealand). The following item appeared in the Brisbane "Sunday Mail" on Oct., 9th, 2005

Australia's footwear icon, the thong, has been slammed as a health hazard. The summer fashion must-haves can cause long-term damage to the feet of chronic wearers, experts have warned. Thongs are so potentially damaging that the The Australian Podiatry Association has advised against constant wear.

Earlier this year, the Sunday Mail reported that thongs had became a celebrity cult item costing up to $200 a pair. But Queensland APA president Barry Matthews said the health costs associated with wearing thongs too much were a lot higher. "The concern is these people are more likely to have foot pain and more likely to develop bunions and sore toes, he said. "Thongs might also give them arch pain, pain in the ball of their foot, ankle pain, leg pain and knee pain."

Mr Matthews said he treated thong wearers every day. Much of the damage was caused because thongs were difficult to keep on. "There isn't much holding the thong on your foot so you tend to claw your toes more trying to hang on," he said. Another failing was that thongs failed give any foot support. "A shoe should bend only at the ball of the foot . . and it should have a firm heel counter which helps control where the heel and foot sit on the ground, Mr Mattthews said.

But, he said, thongs aiso had positive aspects and infrequent wearing was fine. They were good for use near swimming pools and in public showers to prevent the spread of tinea and warts.

Queensland University of Technology podiatry lecturer Alan Crawford said while thongs might be appropriate for the beach, they should not be worn around town. "There's no protection and equally no support, and the foot tends to flatten out and can become tired and strained," he said.



PC GOBBLEGOOK MYSTIFIES COUNCIL LEADER IN BRITAIN

A new 55,000 pound post for a Corporate Social Inclusion Manager at Oxfordshire County Council has been rubbished as an exercise to "tick a Government inspector's box" by Keith Mitchell. The county council leader has admitted he does not actually know what the point of the post is and says the money could be better spent wiping out a huge predicted deficit in the council's overspending youth service -- part of the authority's community learning directorate. He added that the money on offer could be better spent employing extra youth workers.

The aim of Oxfordshire's youth service, which was rated 'very good' by Ofsted inspectors last year, is to get youngsters involved in various projects and groups. It also includes a counselling and mentoring service for troubled youngsters. However, it is forecast to overspend by more than 100,000 pounds by the end of next March and a recent report to councillors said "further staffing reductions are planned in the medium term in order to enable the serviced to balance its budget in 2005/06 and 2006/07".

An advertisement for the position in the national press read: "This is an outstanding opportunity for a highly motivated and articulate individual. You will be working at a corporate level across the whole spectrum of the council's activities, making a major contribution to policy implementation, performance monitoring and service improvement. "You will be able to maintain an effective balance between support, challenge and influence and be persuasive with senior managers, whilst maintaining their confidence. "With well-developed interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate effectively, you will be adaptable and able to work independently and as part of a team." The closing date for applications is October 14, with interviews being held the following month.

All local authorities are obliged to perform certain functions and attain performance targets set by the Government. The county council is currently ranked a 'good' authority having previously been a 'fair' council. Mr Mitchell has vowed to look into whether this particular post is a necessary function. He said: "I fear this might be a job to satisfy a Government inspector and, given that we have issues in the youth service, we could have wiped out half the deficit with this money. "Social inclusion is very important, but we could do it just as effectively with youth workers -- so I'm yet to be convinced about this position."

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A REFRESHING BURST OF INCORRECTNESS

Just when you thought drinking had become politically correct - the sexually equalizing rise of the Cosmopolitan, female bartenders, restaurantlike lounges with bar chefs, and cocktail menus among mixed company - along comes Frank Kelly Rich to remind you that drinking is drinking after all. Mr. Rich, the editor of Modern Drunkard, a monthly magazine, puts the boozing back in booze. From Denver, a city he claims to live in because he was driving through and found a bar he liked so much he stayed (the Lions Lair), Mr. Rich and his publication, which started as a zine in 1996 and has a circulation of roughly 50,000, acknowledge the inescapable facts of drinking: excess, ecstasy, epiphany, serious lapses and imaginative leaps in accepted behavior and the moral conundrum of how something that feels so good can be so bad.

Now, at 41, Mr. Rich has put the total of his knowledge and experience into a book. "The Modern Drunkard," being published in November by Riverhead, is not a memoir but an instructional guide. It covers subjects like planning a lost weekend, circumventing an intervention and, in an extensive chapter, drinking on the job. Mr. Rich isn't kidding. Keeping his tongue in his cheek would impede the flow of alcohol. Mr. Rich is out drinking every night, or has a party at his house. On rare nights off, he has two drinks and goes to bed. "I'm trying to drink different drinks every day," he said in a telephone conversation on Tuesday. Mr. Rich's fallback is a gin and tonic with bitters, what he calls a Hemingway Code Hero because Papa drank it, as do several protagonists, whom lit-crit classes call his "code heroes." You possess honor and a death wish.

Born and raised in Las Vegas, then Reno, one of seven children, a son of a cocktail waitress and a cabdriver "with a gambling problem," as he put it, Mr. Rich joined the Army at 17, left after four years and traveled the world and its bars. "Bars are the great schools of thought," he said. Confident that he won't remember a word, Mr. Rich now carries a digital tape recorder when he goes out drinking to capture what he believes is the wisdom of the unwound tongue.

"Oh, yeah, like, every week," he said, asked if he regrets anything he has said or done, which includes fistfights (which are covered in the book). But in an age of political correctness, when "a person is more likely to be judged by what he refrained from doing than what he actually did," as Mr. Rich writes in "The Modern Drunkard," his own sense of achievement sounded reasonably secure.

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