THE mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg, is said to be the eighth richest human in the USA.

And probably the eighth richest creature of any kind. (There may be a wealthy pooch languishing on a lap somewhere in California that has inherited a wodge to dwarf Bloomberg’s but I don’t know of any.) To the army of men of a certain age to whom stepping out on an expedition to buy a new pair of shoes can send a shiver down the soul, Mr Bloomberg is a hero.

Why? Because despite presumably having a bank statement capable of taking longer to read than Tolstoy’s War and Peace (or even a teenager’s mobile phone bill), Mr Bloomberg boasts just two pairs of work shoes.

What’s more, not only are they both pairs of black loafers but he has been hoofing around in them for eight years.

And he’s confident that they will be adorning his plates until he steps down from public office in three years’ time.

Bloomberg is clearly not a man too big for his boots.

We live in a world divided. There are the footwear fanatics who regard the buying of a new pair of shoes as the nearest thing on earth to heaven.

And there are the others (collectively known as Men Like Me) who find that peculiar ritual of walking round a shoeshop testing one new shoe as ungainly.

And I am a man with a track record of walking around with shoes from two different pairs on the end of the pins. Once, when late for work in London, I sank down into a seat on the Tube and gazed down with relief to discover that, despite the rush, I had a shoe on each foot.

The problem was that the left and right came from different pairs. One was a smart beige shoe. And the other a dark green.

That is the problem with having too much choice.

I once worked with a woman who owned no fewer than 200 pairs of shoes. And she wasn’t even a centipede.

Bloomberg’s two pairs, like winklepickers, may be squeezing things a little far, but does any man need more than six pairs?

A man’s half-dozen should include his football boots, even if he last played a game in the days when the Cherries were mere pips.

They should also include that essential male footwear, the laceless trainers or old sandals kept by the door for when you need to take the rubbish out to the bin.

I don’t know how many pairs Pope Benedict XVI owns but he certainly turned eyes when he arrived in Scotland sporting nifty red slip-ons. (Though the white socks didn’t do a lot for him in the fashion stakes.) Mayor Bloomberg’s London equivalent, Boris Johnson, it is reported, is a six-pair mayor. One of which is said to be clogs. Wearing them when he’s cycling must be some feat and I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes, would you?

By contrast, the American novelist Danielle Steel, owns thousands of pairs and has been known, it is reported, to buy 80 pairs of designer shoes in a single day.

Why do so many women, in particular, feel the need to build up a collection of shoes that in Danielle Steel’s case is reported to include 6,000 pairs of Louboutins.

I don’t get it. You’d think her family would say: “Couldn’t you just go and have the old ones heeled instead, dear?”

But it’s probably wise to leave well alone.

After all, you could find yourself treading on toes over that difficult issue... a woman’s right to shoes.