Still having trouble getting up and out the door at a time that doesn't feel like I'm wasting half the morning, but perhaps I'm comparing myself unfairly with "Dawn Patrol Pete", and after all, this is meant to be a holiday.
Hit the Megastore replacing Tower in Piccadilly Circus. Found it very wanting. Nobody seems to have given any thought to layout. An amazing mess really in terms of finding anything inside 20 minutes, and nobody seems to care. Online shopping has rather spoiled things for full-price don't-know-don't-care firms in big shopping precincts; they just don't seem to have noticed. Yet. Wandered further up Regent St and into Hamleys, toy mecca to generations of Brits. Still a fine place to visit, but the hi-NRG r'n'b diva pap they now broadcast on some floors really doesn't fit. And why does Britain need a swathe of toys barking in bad LA accents now any more than it ever has?
Onward, side diversion into Kingly St, where it seems Beatles For Sale has vanished. It WAS next door to the club where Paul met Linda way back when, now The Miranda Club, but no yellow sub in the window next door anymore. Wonder who got them, and why? Mere yards away, Carnaby St...or its location, anyway. "Not what it used to be", wrote Bruce Foxton of The Jam. In 1977. As epicentre of Mod culture, it's all but gone now. Bought a new Fred Perry shirt in The Face, but that's on Ganton Street around the corner. The whole strip has a sad feel of faded glory to it...probably bound to happen with almost every possible tourist quid wrung out of it for forty years now. Even more determined to get to Brighton again, where there should be no doubt and little fade.
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