I’m not going to do a deep dive on this question. Instead, I’ll be remarkably superficial. It’s part of my family tree. Generally, Vincent’s, or at least my variety of that linage, are not tall people.
Believe me there are advantages in being short. For a start, I can fit happily into most aircraft seats while watching others wriggle uncomfortably. When a photographer says, tall people at the back, short people at the front, I’m always in the frame. Squeezing into awkward spaces can be useful now and then.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be a couple of inches taller? I think so. I don’t want to be a lanky six-footer who crashes against any low roof beam. No ambition to play basketball. Or to pick apples without a step ladder. An inch or two would be handy. Size does help when standing at a lectern trying to look authoritative. In a line-up of colleagues or business acquaintance hight often seems magnified.
Put aside everything I’ve said. Because whatever the numerical facts, I am me. No way would I ever think of buying those shoes that elevate. Never would I let myself be intimated by the hight of others (mostly). And I’m no Napoleon.
And by the way Randy Newman[1] was being ironic and sending up prejudice.
John Vincent 