Being 5ft 9in tall proper heels serve only to make me tower above friends

Being 5ft 9in tall, proper heels serve only to make me tower above friends. This time, however, their appearance has been greeted with glee rather than a dismissive flick of the wrist.
“So chic! So now!”"Where’s my credit card?”Last season, the coquettish offerings from Prada, Sergio Rossi and Gina were virtual works of art (if you are aesthetically tuned to these things) and had prices to match – the Prada version started at pounds 195 But few cared about the expense. For the super-chic, you see, acquisition, ownership and one-upmanship come way, way before price. What were people getting for their money? A low-slung, pointy-toed, slingback shoe with an impossibly dainty looking, hard-as-nails one-inch baby stiletto, or “kitten” heel, nestling underneath.This season, the high street has latched on to the trend, which is good news if you would rather put pounds 195 towards your summer holiday.Ravel has been the first to “out” its pointy-toed kitten heel (very similar to a well-known designer version). As a high-fashion item, the shoes with miaow appeal have been around a few times before.

“Mr Bailey would like to see me riding over fences and I can see his point of view,” Williamson said last night.. At the ready-to-wear shows in Paris last October, the click-click- click of sharp heels echoed around the cavernous walls of the Carrousel du Louvre, the purpose-built underground venue for fashion shows. The source of the noise was not lethal spiked stilettos, but their altogether more elegant sibling, the kitten-heeled slingback, worn (of course) by svelte black-clad fashion editors with good calves, shiny hair, and a supply of plasters for their tattered heels. However, with British racing at the mercy of the weather, his return mount may be at Clonmel, in his homeland, on Thursday.The jockey needs the activity to convince Kim Bailey, Master Oats’s trainer, that he has recovered sufficiently to take the big-race ride. Thanks to the postponement of Leopardstown’s Hennessy Gold Cup, Williamson will be able to resume his partnership with Master Oats, the Cheltenham Gold Cup winner, in the rescheduled race on Sunday.The Irishman, who broke a femur in a fall at Sedgefield, was given a clean bill of health yesterday evening by his specialist, Michael Foy, who will now pass on his diagnosis to the Jockey Club’s Dr Michael Turner.Williamson has been riding out in Ireland for the last two weeks and would like to ride competitively as soon as possible. Racing

RICHARD EDMONDSON
Norman Williamson, out of the saddle with a broken leg since October, has surpassed the expectations of his doctors and has been declared fit to ride again.

And it was they, as the organisers of next week’s Paris tournament, who announced the wild card for Capriati yesterday.. In January 1994, she returned to school, but later that year police found her in possession of marijuana, and she spent time on a drug rehabilitation programme.Capriati and Seles are represented by the International Management Group, who helped smooth the path for Seles’s return with an exhibition match against Navratilova in Atlantic City last July. At 15, she beat Martina Navratilova to become the youngest Wimbledon semi-finalist.Before her name disappeared from the world rankings in 1994, because of inactivity, she had risen as high as No 6 and had added $1.49m (pounds 975,000) in prize money to the fortune from sponsorships and endorsements.In 1991, she appeared with Seles on the cover of the Forbes Magazine listing the world’s 40 highest-paid athletes, but the income began to diminish when personal problems manifested themselves in misdemeanours attracting world-wide publicity.In December 1993, Capriati was arrested in Florida for taking a ring from a shop without paying for it. Before striking a ball, she had attracted long-term tennis clothing and racket contracts estimated to be worth $5m (pounds 3.25m).At 14, she was the youngest Grand Slam semi-finalist, at the French Open; the youngest player to be seeded, at Wimbledon, and the youngest to win a match at the All England Club. She had experienced nothing but tennis, making her professional debut at Boca Raton, Florida, 23 days before her 14th birthday. Although she gave a spirited performance in losing a first-round match against Germany’s Anke Huber, who went on to win the tournament, it did not provide the impetus to sustain a comeback.Capriati began to fall apart in September 1993, when a simmering rebellion against the influence of her father, Stefano, developed into a full-scale revolt. She has played only one match in almost two and a half years since losing to the Georgian Leila Meskhi in the first round of the 1993 United States Open.That defeat was hard for Capriati to take.

The previous year she lost in the third round to the unseeded Canadian Patricia Hy, having returned with the gold medal she won in Barcelona with a victory against Steffi Graf in the Olympic final.Capriati’s last appearance was in Philadelphia in November 1994. Tennis

JOHN ROBERTS
Jennifer Capriati will return to the sport in Paris next week, encouraged, no doubt, by the successful rehabilitation of Monica Seles, and keen to defend her Olympic Games singles title in Atlanta.The one-time American prodigy, whose disaffection with the professional tour led to an arrest for shoplifting and a problem with drugs, has been given a wild card for the Open Gaz de France.Capriati’s second attempt to revive her career comes less than two months before her 20th birthday. It would have been a difficult situation for us if we had been going to Colombo.”Measures to protect England include armed soldiers in their hotel in Lahore and a heavy military presence around the park ground where Mike Atherton and his team spent six hours practising yesterday.. Some of the World Cup cities, like Karachi, Peshawar and Lahore (where England are staying peacefully at the moment) have suffered recently from ethnic and sectarian violence.Ray Illingworth, the England team manager, said: “You have to feel sympathy for Australia.

Privately many Sri Lankans feel the cricketers are over-reacting. One official asked: “What’s the fuss,” “There have been bomb blasts in some of the other World Cup venues – Karachi, Bombay and New Delhi – and no one is complaining.”Pakistan could be another hot spot for visiting teams, with the Pakistani and Indian armies fighting over disputed areas in Kashmir. On the other hand, disqualification, which the Australian captain, Mark Taylor, acknowledged yesterday as a “possibility”, would rob the tournament of two of its largest draws and consequently much credibility.Tamil rebels have bombed and killed many people in Colombo during their 12-year civil war, but have never targeted foreigners. A decision to allow countries simply to forfeit games would make a mockery of the qualification stages, which would be seriously compounded if Zimbabwe and Kenya join the boycott. We are confident that the situation is under control and we also have confidence in the organisers of the World Cup tournament that they will make the right kind of decision whenever the situation demands.”Leicestershire, who were due to make a pre-season tour of Sri Lanka, withdrew yesterday, and are making plans to tour South Africa instead.The effect on the competition could be huge.