A grand day out

After scraping myself out of bed this morning, and standing rather conspicuously in the middle of the kitchen in my underwear sipping coffee - while waiting for a turn in the shower - I pulled some clothes on, and prepared to set out with the rest of the family for a day in London together. My middle daughter had requested the day out as part of her birthday present - “a day in London”. What she really meant of course was a trip to Build-a-Bear in Hamleys toy shop on Regent Street, lunch at Nandos, a trip to M&M World at Leicester Square, across the way to the LEGO store, and then finally to Forbidden Planet. She had it all mapped out on her phone the night before. We walked to the local railway station, printed our tickets from the machine on the platform edge, then amused ourselves with our own idiotic conversation as we hurtled towards London. Hamleys is everything you might expect from a Hollywood movie - with an army of entertainment and service staff wherever you look - filling children with wonder, and emptying their parents wallets expertly. I quietly listened to the sales pitch being given by one of the floor staff about a table-top air-hockey game. His utter nonsense almost had me believing. I came away wondering how much of it was improvised, and how much of it was informed by a sales department armed with mountains of behavioural data. After the girls had bought their “Build-a-Bears”, we carried on to Nandos - a staple of the British high-street, imported from South Africa. While dressed up as “discovered street food” it’s really just variations on chicken and chips, marinaded in a variety of peri-peri sauces. We all clean-plated. After a short walk, we arrived in Leicester Square and I descended into the strange smelling hell of M&M World with my daughter, while my other half went off to explore a tea emporium across the way. We emerged with the most expensive bags of M&Ms in the known universe and unexpectedly walked straight into my other half again. “I thought you might still be in the tea shop?” “Erm. No. Not at £17 for a small tin of tea leaves.” “What?!” “That’s what I said.” The next stop took us to the LEGO shop - to gaze in wonder at the various kits and displays, and be walked into, or pushed out of the way by the most oblivious idiots I’ve crossed paths with in some time. While trying to avoid them, my other half found me; “You’ve got to come and see this…” “You’ve just found Barad Dur, haven’t you.” She grinned. It’s a £400 LEGO kit, that builds Sauron’s castle from the Lord of the Rings books and movies. It’s colossal, and we would have nowhere to put it, but it was oddly impressive. The final leg of our expedition took us towards Forbidden Planet on Shaftesbury Avenue - the biggest comic book and collectibles store in the country. While the rest of the family looked at Funko Pop figures, I descended into their comic book labyrinth and returned with a bag full of wonders (well… wonders to me). Before leaving London we somehow chanced upon a rather wonderful Harry Potter store, filled to the gunnels with everything you might ever imagine from the wizarding world, and more. I chanced upon a replacement wallet for my daughter (to replace the one I put through the washing machine). She now has a wallet emblazoned with the “Marauder’s Map” in her pocket. I won’t lie - as much fun as it is to visit London, it’s also nice get home again. I have friends that live half a world away that would have loved to come with us - so try to catch myself in calling out anything negative about the city or it’s people. If you’re wondering about the books I bought, one of them isn’t a comic-book at all - it’s a wonderful dramatisation of life in San Francisco during the explosive re-emergence of video game development in the 1980s. I’ll let Stephen Fry’s synopsis do the talking: Picks and Shovels, Cory Doctorow’s reconstruction of the rise of Silicon Valley, is note perfect. I love Marty and Art and all the main characters. I love the hope and the thrill that marks the opening section. But I love too the thesis that San Francisco always has failed and always will fail her suitors. Even in the sunlight of that time the shadows are lengthening. the seeds of enshittification are all there. Despite cultural entropy, corruption, greed and all the betrayals there’s a core of hope and honour in the story too… And some damned good recipes that I have tucked away. I can’t wait to read it.