You need good shoes for canvassing

Without a good pair of shoes, Denis has no business dipping his toe into the political stream.

People have often asked me, why I have never dipped my toe into the political stream.

“Every other jackass has done it at some stage,” a wise old man said to me, only the other day.

“You have the looks,” they say, “and you have the neck”.

And yes, while there is little doubt that I would make a first-rate Taoiseach, or a President of Ireland in the mould of Donald J Trump, there is another reason I am not fit for high office.

I don’t have the right credentials to fill the shoes of a Taoiseach or President.

My problem lies with my feet, or more pertinently, with my boots.

The main thing standing between me and electoral success in February is footwear.

It’s as simple as that.

If you recall, sometime back, perhaps three of four years ago, I mentioned that I had the heels of my boots re-shod.

The repair job had me racing around like a thoroughbred in no time.

For a couple of quid, I was back on track.

And a finer job I dare say could not have been done by Jimmy Choo himself.

With my heels rejigged, I was ready to take on the world.

I stood out from the crowd.

I was able to put my right foot forward, and indeed my left one too.

It was all the same to me what way we were going.

I had heels to take me anywhere. Heels to be proud of. Indeed, I still do.

The problem with my boots these days is that the soles have started to come away from the shoes.

And like a boat set adrift from its moorings, all you can really do is stand idly by, and cry a tear as events unfold.

I suspect the toasting of my boots by the fire, each and every night, might have something to do with the calamity.

Alas, there was little I could do about it, with my poor old feet cold after a day on the land, the fire was my last resort.

Regardless of whatever cursed event caused the crisis in my footwear, I have been left in a bad way.

I might still have the heels of Lord Flatley, but I’ve the soles of ‘The Tramp’, my boots are like things worn by the great Charles Chaplin in his movies of long ago.

That is why, today, I cannot run for election, indeed I can hardly walk.

I am currently wearing a class of flip flops, not by design but default.

And I feel nobody would vote for a man accoutred in such a fashion.

I could well come a cropper at the ballot box, or even while out canvassing.

To put it bluntly, I’m a walking disaster.

Of course in the perfect world, I would go to town and purchase a new pair.

But as you well know, farming is far from the perfect world. You only have to put a hand into your empty pocket to realise that.

My only hope now is that I might get a good tip on a horse running at Leopardstown over the weekend, and that a four-legged champion might provide me with the funds my own two legs so desperately need.

Without such intervention, I’m afraid my election hopes are doomed.

For without proper boots to carry me over the line, I simply don’t have a leg to stand on.