While we debate this and other profound issues at CLOG HQ, here’s a picture of the foot-warming CLOG slippers in 100% genuine man-made fibre, available from all good souvenir outlets in Amsterdam.

amsterdam-weekly-article-on-blog081

Here’s what I learned from wearing Big, Wooden, Netherlandish Clogs for a whole day at Blog08.

1. I decide to take three pairs of shoes to the conference, requiring a BIG bag. One pair of trainers for the street, one pair of wooden MooMoo clogs to wear at the conference and a pair of Splendid red normal clogs for just-in-case (more about those soon). I’m a true boy scout, prepared for any eventuality.
2. That doesn’t stop me from being incredibly nervous. Not long after putting on my clogs, I feel like a right doofus. But I promised to wear them so on my feet they stay.
3. I thought they’d be an ice-breaker. They are, with a minimal number of brave and curious folk. Mostly, they seem to repel the other 248 people at the conference more effectively than super strength Deet at work against mosquitoes.
4. Edial and Ernst-Jan, the Blog08 organisers seem to think they’re funny and congratulate me on colour-coordinating my clogs with my clothes. Guys, it’s not hard to match black and white. What can I say?
5. I go to get coffee from the bar at the conference. No one speaks to me. I try to approach some people, but the clogs have sapped my confidence. I bottle out when I see the up-and-down appraisals I’m getting, NOT in a good way. Ho hum. The stupid things I get myself into! Never again.
6. In the conference, no one wants to sit next to me. I feel like the wallflower at a high school dance. Still the clogs do not come off. I’m getting stubborn about this now.
7. Finally, a latecomer sits next to me and chats a bit. At tea time he disappears. Darnit. I’m too slow in my clogs to keep up with him. Perhaps he just moved extra-fast to get away from me.
8. Then, during the tea break a guy wants to take photos of my clogs. I could have kissed him! At last, a fan. From then on, things get easier. I start making friends. It feels like the first day at a new school.
9. It’s cold and rainy outside but I still want to get out and see the Amsterdam sky, so I take my clogs for a bit of a spin in the Great Outdoors. The clogs are too big to wear on the stairs, so I have to take them off and carry them down to the ground floor. I suppose I could have taken the disabled lift, but feel bad about that because, strictly speaking, I don’t have a disability; I am but a simple clog-wearer. So down the stairs in my socks I go. More strange looks. 
10. Outside in the pouring rain, the clogs are warm and waterproof and loud. They make a hell of a racket on the paving stones. I take photos of my clogs as people cycle past in their wet-weather clothes, doing double-takes at my huge black-n-white feet. That makes me laugh.
11. One chap asks to try on one of my clogs because he doesn’t believe me when I say they’re actually quite comfy. He doesn’t agree with my view, but then he isn’t wearing thick camping socks like me.
12. Back in the conference I catch people staring at my feet. When I turn to look at them, they turn away rapidly. Okay, then. They’re only clogs, you know. They don’t bite!
13. At lunch, I sit on the floor with a fellow conference-goer. The clogs make it difficult to get down to floor level and almost impossible to stand back up. Somehow, I manage.
14. By 4pm I’ve decided to give up. I’m sick to death of people looking at me like I’m an escapee from the Amsterdam Asylum. I also need to go back downstairs and I want to do it in trainers this time. I figure 7 hours and 15 minutes is a respectable day to have spent in clogs. I need a break.
15. The minute I’m in my trainers, people find me more approachable. They come up and ask where my clogs have gone. Isn’t it ironic? I should tell Alanis Morissette to add it to her song.
16. At the after-conference party in a disused bunker in North Amsterdam, more people, no doubt somewhat lubricated by alcohol, come up to ask what happened to my clogs. I explain. They’re actually disappointed. There’s no way I’m putting them back on because the stairs in and out of this underground room are too deep for regular shoes, let alone clogs.
17. When I finally make it back to the hotel, I put my clogs in a corner and look at them for ages. They’ll make great pot plant holders at home. It’s been a great day and I completed the challenge I’d set myself, but I would think very, very hard before wearing a pair of MooMoo clogs into a conference or any place so incredibly full of strangers. It was way harder than I’d thought it would be. Still, it’s another nutty tale for me to dine out on, I guess, so for that, it’s been well worth it.  

I digress. This is the pair of clogs I chose from Gerrit Habermehl’s website:

Milk, anyone? MOOOOO.

And this is what they looked like on Dutch soil (well, Dutch paving to be precise, but you get the gist). They were HUGE. I felt a bit like a smurf.

Here I am at the conference. I had to ask the receptionists to take a photo of me. From their faces, they obviously thought I was weird. I have to admit, they were not alone.

Strangely enough, the angle makes me look kinda bovine and the clogs look kinda teeny. Trust me, they weren’t teeny. They were huge and conspicuous and made a lot of noise as I got around the conference. As for the stairs, well, all I can say is under NO circumstances should you attempt to go up or down stairs in clogs like these.

Here’s a lexicon of CLOG related definitions:

To CLOG up = to fill or jam, preferably with CLOGs

CLOGaphobia = Andy Bargery’s irrational fear of CLOGs.

CLOGdom = the kingdom of CLOGs

to CLOGger someone = to hit them hard with a CLOG

as opposed to the noun, CLOGger = someone who blogs in CLOGs

CLOGgie = a Dutch person or any proud CLOG wearer

CLOGhood

CLOGhoodity

CLOGolate = chocolate CLOGs

CLOGology = the study of CLOGs

CLOGologist = student of all things CLOG

CLOGorabilia = CLOG memorabilia

CLOGsicle = a popsicle in the shape of a CLOG (I haven’t seen one yet, but I may have to invent one)

CLOGspital = a CLOG repair shop

CLOMPIN’ = Walking in CLOGs

KLOMPEN = Dutch word for CLOGs

KLOMPEN- dans = Dutch CLOG dance

Some CLOG sayings for you…

A CLOG in the works = a problem

It’s raining cats and CLOGS = get out your brolly. It’s pouring.

Little CLOGgies read fairy tales like…

CLOGarella

Little Red Riding CLOGs

The Year of the CLOG is…2008, the year this blog was created.

The story goes that there once was a kindly Grandpa Strutts who gave this pocket knife to Young Bunk. The knife is decorated with the New Church in Delft, and attached to it by jewellery chain is a miniature pair of clogs. Young Bunk kept this treasure in a Japanese puzzle box, also a gift from Grandpa Strutts, and now, many a moon later, Bunkessa, Bunk’s eldest daughter, is the keeper of these Strutts heirlooms. As Bunk writes:

“For scale, the knife case is 2 inches long, and the clogs are about 1/4 inch wide. I can’t wear ‘em.”

Pleased to hear it, Bunk, but Thumbelina might be missing a pair of shoes from her teeny weeny wardrobe!

Apparently, the chain attaching the clogs to the pocket knife has broken so that only one little clog is properly attached; the other is free to leave at any time but won’t, proving that if you love your clog, set it free. If it sticks with its pair, it was meant to be. If not, you need a new pair of clogs.

Thank you to Bunk and Bunkessa Strutts for sending me this tale, and to the Late, Great Grandpa Strutts for being such a cool Cloggie.

Tune in to Andy Bargery on the London Bloggers’ website to read about the latest Clogblogger sightings. Gosh, and here was me thinking my appearances were discreet! Just wait till I hit Amsterdam, birthplace of The Clog… The sightings are bound to go clonkers.

http://www.londonbloggers.net/81/have-you-seen-the-clog-blogger/

**The Heineken clogs picture was sent to me by Gerrit Habermehl of the clog-tastic Habermehl website. FYI, if you’re thinking of a new corporate gift that no recipient could ever possibly forget, you should consider Gerrit’s clogs. Just about any logo can be put onto a pair of clogs via this website. But you don’t have to stick to corporate designs, or even wearable clogs if you’re a clog enthusiast. Habermehl does Delft pattern, keyrings, you name it. If you love clogs, you’ll love Habermehl.

You, too, can own one of these for the princely sum of €3.44 from Habermehl’s Online Shop. Then all you need is a bottle of Heineken to use it on.