Wear a fancy flat and you can dance all night – and into the new year | Jess Cartner-Morley

Heels are no longer a prerequisite for a night out. We are now living in the golden age of the party flat

The past few years have been record-breakingly bad by almost all metrics, what with a pandemic and a war and a recession and disastrous prime ministers. Not to mention the poor Queen – and have you seen the price of eggs?

But it’s nearly champagne-o’clock, and New Year’s Eve is a time to look for the positives. So I urge you to give thanks, my friends, for one thing the past five years has got right, which is the flat party shoe. We are living in the golden age of the fancy flat. As golden eras go, it’s not up there with Renaissance Florence or the swinging 60s. But we are where we are.