Shoe Politics

 (Courtesy Eschipul, Flickr)

Everybody at the table has 2 slips of paper.

On slip 1, write a subject, or a topic of some kind.

On slip 2, write an object. Some kind of “thing.”

Fold them up and put them in the middle in two respective piles. Ask someone to pick one slip from each pile. Whatever is written on the slips, that's the subject and object the group will work with. Now imagine that object had a voice of its own. What opinions would it have on the subject? write a first person monologue for ten minutes investigating this.

We had “geopolitics” and “shoe”.

The opportunities to combine these two are surprisingly varied, looking back through recent world news. The Chinese PM got a shoe thrown at him in Cambridge back in '09,  President Bush got the same treatment a year previous in Iraq, Condoleeza Rice, the former US Secretary of State, shopped for them whilst Hurricane Katrina made thousands homeless and more recently, presidential candidate Mitt Romney was photographed receiving an apparent shoe-shine before a plane journey (in reality a security guard was “wanding” him- a search procedure necessary before he was allowed to board). 

I chose not to use any of these. Instead, I devised my own (typically surreal) anecdote.

The United Nations recently came to the conclusion that they have been unfairly slack on a number of global issues- the financial crisis, third world poverty, the War on Terror, ad nauseum. That's why, instead of repeatedly relying on politicians who lie and fail us, they have turned to me: a shoe.

The political landscape of the Earth may be tumultuous but, I hear you ask, why ask a piece of footwear to take responsibility for such affairs? Simple. The UN is determined to stamp down on global terrorism. That's where I come in. They want to lace up relations with eastern countries like China. They want to put the boot in with greedy Wall Street bankers who- ironically- the politicians themselves live off.

I have been called in because they need a well-heeled individual who won't pussyfoot around such subjects and will put his foot down on corporate greed. I will put my heart and, um, “sole” into it. I realise that a pedalogical ankle- I mean, angle- might be unusual, but once I am bestowed these powers those Wall Street Wankers will realise that the shoe is most definitely on the other foot.

We'll soon be making big steps towards economic stability, allowing smaller countries to once again stand on their own two feet.