Today's mystery object is...

Well, actually, it's what you find at the bottom of a very rarely-explored wardrobe after you've left your Clarks 'Naturetrek' shoes undisturbed in it for well over a decade:

The irony is that these same shoes were repaired by the maker when their original "last longer than you will" soles came completely adrift from the leather uppers while I was wearing them — and right in the middle of giving a very well-attended talk on "Java and the web" to the ISTC annual shindig in Beaumont, Old Windsor — in November 1996. I was required to pay half the cost of repair on the grounds that, although they agreed their fine product certainly shouldn't have disintegrated quite so catastrophically, I had by then had a "reasonable" amount of wear out of them.

I don't think I shall bother sending the perishing things back a second time. I recognise "defeet" when it's staring at me!