The next step.

 I love the modern world. The modern world is fantastic because everything just keeps getting better. I was thinking that the other day as I settled into my comfortable train seat on my long trip home from the city scrolling through all the downloaded movies I had on offer on my laptop. Cars have got better, too. I’m deeply grateful for that device that goes ping! ping! ping! at you whenever you try to get out of the car with the headlights still on. What are those things you call “jump leads”?

 TVs are way better. They’re flat. You can put them on the wall and they no longer need nasty stands. I remember TVs before remote controls came along. Remotes were a massive bonus to mankind. And what about phones! Phones and their kin are ridiculously brilliant now. We’ve got iPads and sat nav and Kindles and so many wondrous new gadgets that they keep improving to the point where I don’t just love the modern world, I’m in love with it.

 But while so many of the things we use every day just keep getting better, there is one major exception: shoes. Despite all the mind-blowing developments in technology and engineering, shoes are pretty much the same as they were 20 years ago. It’s still really hard to find a pair that are comfortable to walk in, keep your feet dry and look all right with a skirt.

 Of course, there have been some innovations. Crocs, ha ha ha. Then there are those ones that are supposed to give you a Kylie derriere just by walking to the corner shop to buy biscuits. Which is a lovely idea, but they’re plug ugly shoes, aren’t they? The trainer is the one area of the footwear market where technology is a key part of the marketing spruik, yet apart from actual sports use (jogging to the shop to get biscuits), most people I know have reverted to the Converse All Star as their default sandshoe. And they’ve been pretty much the same since 1917.

 The most useful innovation I can think of is Velcro fasteners on kids’ shoes. There was an attempt to market shoes with two heel heights – you screwed one off and put the other on – but they never got beyond the stage of the novelty invention. Folding and roll-up flats to keep in your bag for the moment you can’t endure your heels for another minute have their place, but they’re not proper shoes. More of an emergency service.

 What I’m looking for is a shoe revolution at the level of the exponential shift from your grandma’s hall-table telephone to an iPhone. I want a heel that lowers itself automatically on uneven surfaces and a waterproof sole as slender as leather, which thickens into a platform in rain. Insoles that give you pressure-point massages to relieve bunion pain while you’re walking. Shoe shops that take X-rays of your feet and create the style you want tailored exactly for your foot, on the spot. I want size ten and three-quarters. I want innovation so new I can’t even imagine it. Surely the collective human brain power that brought us such advances as the touch screen is up to this. Mr Jobs, Mr Blahnik, are you listening?