Shop shop shop

The last day in London was spent at the new Westfield shopping centre in Shepherds Bush, right across the road from the glorious institution that is the BBC Television Centre. You can almost see the Blue Peter Garden from the car park.

Now I knew it was big but blimey! It took two hours to walk round the first floor without going into every shop. The last Westfield I went into was in Innaloo and you could fit the whole of that into Marks and Spencers here. In fact it's too big to go to unless you know specifically which shops you want. After doing one floor we were over it. It never ceases to amaze me how shopping has become the default leisure activity over here. The place was pretty packed but hardly anyone seemed to be buying things, just wandering around on their day off and having chain store coffee. In fact the developers seemed to have miscalculated the requirements for cafe seating as all of them (Starbucks, Pret, Costa et.al.) were standing room only. We finally to get a seat in a slightly fake French bistro called Le Pain Quotidien. Actually it was more than slightly fake, the service was excellent for example, but they were trying to make it French, even down to the coffee being served in bowls instead of cups with handles. It reminded me of a hideous school skiing trip to Switzerland when I was 11 and breakfast was bread and jam and hot chocolate served in a bowl. O! Our crazy European cousins.

I did manage to meet up with CG while I was there which was great, she of the international woman of mystery world tour. She's been living in London for about a year now which pretty much makes her a local. It's strange but I keep bumping into her on different continents, Australia, North America and now Europe. It was fun as she always has some excitement going on in her life, currently it's the shady sounding bloke she's house shares with. He's a lawyer who spends most of his time in "Bangladesh". I don't know why I parenthesized that but it sounds like a euphemism for "terrorist training camp" to me. Still it's always fun wondering when special branch are going to break down the door of your flat. I'll see her again (dodgy flat mate permitting) in Cornwall in a few weeks, bizarrely she's booked to be in Penzance the same weekend as I'm taking the folks down there. Which is probably lucky as it's not easy being a tourist in Cornwall without a car.

So I got home on Monday and have had a pretty quiet week since then, just a trip to Hereford yesterday to see the cathedral and buy M & D a new Hoover (that should probably be changed to "dysoning" now seeing as nearly everyone in this country seems to have a Dyson).

It's a beautiful place is Hereford, really pretty, lots of old buildings, a proper indoor market and parking is only £1.20 for two hours, which must be some kind of record. The only slight problem is that the cathedral, the biggest thing in the city, is almost impossible to find from the high street. You have to go down a tiny alley between Marks and Spencers and WH Smith. It's a bit odd but does give the whole thing a touch of the Harry Potters, you half expect to find a shop selling wands. I have to say though that the cathedral is a bit of a disappointment. It's a bit too short to be imposing and is made of Hereford sandstone which makes it a bit dull. The real reason to visit is to see the mediaeval Mappa Mundi. This is an early world map and is supposed to be amazing. I saw it when I was a kid when It was just stuck in a case on the wall in a dark corner of one of the transepts. Now it seems to have been moved to a secret location known only to the elderly ladies who act as tour guides in British historic places. Needless to say I couldn't find it and there was no one about to ask on a damp Wednesday in the marches. Oh well its one more historical icon left to cross off my list in the future.

I'm off to Carlisle and then Scotland on Friday, for the day believe it or not, so I'll report back after that but until then some observations;

Boozing: Three pints of decent beer in a pub on Marylebone road cost me less than £10/$15; the same at the Inglewood in Perth would be at least $20. I never thought I'd see the day when a central London pub was cheaper than Perth.

Loans: Some people still need loans over here though, even if the beer is cheap. There was an ad on tv for one. The interest rate was 4235% per annum. Bargain.

Defunct Counties: The British seem loath to let boundary changes affect the way they name things. For example we still write Middlesex on envelopes even though it ceased to be in 1965. Or there's West Mercia Police. Mercia hasn't existed since 918. I haven't missed the "1". The local plod are named after a place that hasn't appeared on the map for over a thousand years.

Sometimes people just can't move on.