Just as the Western World descends into recession, Shepherd's Bush, my home town, opens the biggest urban shopping centre in Europe. Over 250 new stores in a gigantic Cathedral to Commerce (still one step up from building a Cathedral to religion - at least commerce exists, even if, as we're discovered recently, a lot of it is kind of imaginary as well) between White Shitty and Shep-turd's Bush Grey. I have, as you may recall, watched the growth of the monolith over the last five years, admiring the cranes and the men who operate them and excited to see what they would create. And today I got to find out.
I headed down there at 10am, just an hour after the thing had opened and it was already crawling with people. Not with customers, as very few of them seemed to be buying anything, but with people like me curious to see what the work had created and what wonders would be inside.
From a distance the building looks like a massive green brick, kind of like a grounded
Vogon space ship. But once you get closer and within its sprawling boundaries, it's rather more flowing and elegant and almost beautiful, though weirdly antiseptic. There are shell shaped glass ceilings and huge high aisles and walkways, which make the Cathedral comparison rather apt. It is somewhat breath-taking. Today it smelled fresh and new and I was walking around, mouth agape, considering all the work that had gone into creating this modern wonder/horror. Because there is something slightly sickening along with the glitz and the glamour. It's not like anything else in Shepherd's Bush, nor that I have ever seen. I found the experience of walking around this endless labyrinth of boutiques rather overwhelming and confusing. It was easy to get lost in there. I popped into Marks and Spencers, where they were giving out champagne and orange juice (I thought there would be more free stuff on this first day, but that was all I saw). I didn't take any. There was a fashion show going on in the store, but I went downstairs to the food hall, which was reasonably devoid of customers, mainly populated by men and women in business suits looking around at what they had created and slightly nervous looking and over-attentive new staff. I did a little bit of shopping and what was slightly disconcerting and almost surreal was the way that all the shelves were fully stocked. I was pretty much the first person to do any shopping in here. If I took an item from a shelf it left a dent in an otherwise undisturbed display, like I was in some kind of Stepford Wives film set. Even though I was managing to shop perfectly adequately on my own I was asked if I needed any help. A man was doing a demonstration of some of the food to a tiny gaggle of middle aged ladies, saying with a hint of over-prepared desperation that the food stuff (whatever it was) was perfect for sandwiches. It was a flagship store. I have never seen an M&S Food Hall quite as impressive as this one - and I have seen a lot of them.
I also popped into HMV which had a big pile of Wii Fit boards, which I have never seen in a shop before. I have been keen to try one out and so bought one for £69.99 (making my spend including groceries almost £100, surely justifying the building of the entire complex in itself), glad that I didn't crack and buy one from the internet for £100 + £15 p&p.
I was trying to find somewhere that I might be able to meet Collings pre-podcast, but it was hard to find any place for a coffee or that I'd be able to direct him towards. There was an orchestra playing classical music which was being loudly piped around the entire building and I couldn't get to the Apple store as some of the many stewards employed seemed to be blocking access in both directions. The crush and the noise and the bustle was getting too much to bear. Posh shops with names I didn't even recognise were full of staff, but devoid of customers. Everyone, apart from me, was here for the spectacle. I was here for the spectacle, some fruit salads and a Wii.
So then I went home so we could do
Podcast 36, which not surprisingly was mainly about Ross and Brand, but also about the shopping centre and royal reginas and who has come out of them and been in them. The recent backlash against naughtiness did not seem to rein me in. The opposite if anything. Anyway, it was a good mixture of funny and interesting this week I think. There's us in our contrite sunglasses.
And
here's an example of how things will get out of control for a short while, now that people have seen that their complaints can have such repercussions. This case is clearly not homophobic, you stupid dick. It's a strange world when Peter Tatchell is called in to calm things down. But good on him.
I spent my afternoon mainly messing around on my Wii Fit, which initially pegged me as having the fitness level of a 64 year old man. Which can't be right can it? After this year of exercise?
What I mainly liked though was that as with many Wii games you have a little cartoon version of yourself and when my weight and BMI was calculated, my little cartoon suddenly got all chubby round the middle. There's no need to be rude. Again after all my hard work and this is what I get. God knows what it would have done to my cartoon this time last year. Perhaps had him start to wheeze and have his pants split, before having a heart attack.
It's an enjoyable little game and though no substitute for the gym will hopefully help me keep on track. I am heavier than my other scales would have me believe, but did put on half a stone since Edinburgh and have only shed a couple of pounds of that. But now I have the incentive of getting my little cartoon Rich to slim down a bit. I wonder how much I will have to lose.
This evening I popped into a cafe in Hammersmith (I still have to go down there - it's where my gym is, even if its shops are now useless to me). A woman in front of me ordered hot chocolates for herself and her friend. "Oh," she said to the barista, "Could we also get some punani....?" That hung in the air for a second before she realised her mistake - "panini, I mean panini!"
How we all laughed.
Ah real life comedy. Put it in a script. If only the public could be a bit funnier then I would never have to do any work.
