Before my departure for Istria, where I will spend a fortnight starting from this weekend, this week I am breaking in a new pair of walking shoes. Why do I need a new pair? Because I am sick and tired of the beeping security gates at all the airports I have to go through. My old walking boots, which will last me for another six months at least, have too many metal parts for the new settings of security gates. Quite often I am asked to take them off and put them through the screening machine. But my new shoes have not a single metal part. The security crews at Heathrow, Munich, and Trieste will be watching me glide through those bloody gates like a ghost.