I heard on the radio yesterday that there were only 111 shopping days to Christmas. Sadly there are only two shopping days left for me as I am heading back to Cyprus tomorrow and all the bargains are in London. Still I have had a good go at cramming 111 days into 7 in the last week.
Recession, what recession? You would not believe it, judging by the queues to get into the Apple Shop in Regent’s Street and the Abercrombie & Fitch store in Savile Row. A&F is the ultimate shopping experience, sooo wonderfully American! The people who shop there think they are beautiful but everyone who works there really is unbelievably good looking. You can have your photo taken with a topless male model when you go in and there does not appear to be a single item of clothing on the racks that is larger than a size 10. If they can’t stop ugly people sporting the A&F label, they can at least make sure they are not overweight!
Talking of beautiful people, my son bumped into ex-England captain, John Terry, in Marks and Spencer at Bluewater. Fascinating. I wanted to know everything: who was he with? What was he wearing? Anything from A&F? Could he even fit into anything from A&F? What was he buying? Apparently teenage boys on shopping trips don’t stalk celebs. It is really uncool to take an interest, even in famous footballers. All I got out of him was that JT was with a woman and child, possibly his wife, possibly not. And he was carrying a pink mirror. Interesting…..
In terms of shopping successes this week, I have had a few. My one fatal error was buying Tony Blair’s biography, A Journey, at the full price. On an impulse, I decided to get it the day after it was published and Foyles was the closest shop. When I met a friend later for dinner, she informed me that she had bought it for her son the day before in Waterstones, at half price. My son, who of course was unable to spot anything interesting about JT, (and would not be seen dead reading the TB biography) made fun of me for failing to notice the enormous half price adverts everywhere in Waterstones. Foolish me. I consoled myself with the knowledge that my contribution was going to a good cause; the Royal British legion is getting all the proceeds.
What I have learnt so far about my hero, TB (not JT), is that he thinks Gordon Brown has no emotional intelligence and he might have relied on alcohol to relieve the stress a bit too much when he was PM. A “stiff whiskey or G and T before dinner, couple of glasses of wine or even half a bottle with it.” No Tony, this is not excessive. Even though this exceeds the Government’s recommended daily intake in terms of units, it sounds pretty normal to me. Apparently, this is the sort of alcohol intake that can make people reckless in their decision-making. What a load of rubbish, I hadn’t even had a single drink before I recklessly bought the biography at full price…
