Nice shoes, said camp conductor, who last week spent most of the journey from London to Brighton inspecting friend Sarah's shopping. "Where did you get them?"

Knowing, from Sarah's experience with him last week, that he was a bit of a fashion connoisseur (he'd whooped in delight when she produced Dolce and Gabana), I told him LK Bennet.

This was true, in that that was where the shoes I was wearing originally came from but not true, in the sense that that was not where I actually got them from.

"Oh, they must have set you back a bit?" said conductor, exhibiting such a knowledge of the cost of women's clothing that meant most of the women on the train would now have to start hiding their receipts from him, as well as their boyfriends and husbands.

"Possibly," I replied. In fact I hadn't paid anything at all for the shoes in question, which were borrowed from a friend with roughly the same size feet as self but a far more Imelda Marcos-style collection of shoes, some of which she was willing to lend on a short-term basis to a friend with roughly the same size feet and a bit of shoe crisis.

Crisis brought on by fact was going to interview famous celebrity shoe designer whose shoes sold for upwards of £300 and hadn't got anything appropriate to wear.

"You must have something," said editor, incredulously, when I told her of shoe dilemma, looking scornfully at unpedicured, trainer-clad feet. "What do you wear for special occasions?"

I couldn't really think of the last time there was a special occasion, though possibly it was friends' wedding, held in a muddy field, to which guests had been advised to wear footwear appropriate to muddy fields.

So, friend Katherine stepped in (or rather, aside) to help and lent me a pair of teetering LK Bennets for the day.

They'd looked very pretty on the floor of her bedroom but by the time I had hobbled to the station my feet were blistered and my spine was damaged.

Still, as conductor pointed out, they were nice shoes. But as I got off the train at Victoria the nice shoes and I parted company, after the heel of the right shoe gave way, tipping me over and leaving me prostrate on the platform.

The nice shoes had to be replaced with some urgency, in the brief gap between arrival at Victoria and hour of interview.

The only shoe shop on hand was Accessorize on Victoria station, which had a few pairs of flip flops left in its summer sale, including a pair of very pretty beaded ones, which were my size and almost looked as if they could have been handmade by the celebrity shoe designer but were only £2.99.

I put them on and walked in comfort to interview with celebrity shoe designer who was far too polite to comment on ironic flip flops but gave me a lovely interview and said if I ever needed shoes he would be happy to offer a press discount.

"More new shoes?" said the conductor, incredulously noting my change of footwear on the journey home.

"Where did you get them?"

"Jimmy Choo," I said, conducting a personal experiment into perceived difference between a pair of flip flops costing three pounds and those for 300.

"Oh, I love his shoes!" he enthused. "But I thought he only made one-offs and there's a woman in the buffet with some exactly the same. . ."