Hanging Back With The Joneses

On the occasions my mother brought me to London as a child, whether
it was shoes or books or sewing needles we were buying; we always went to Harrods. In those days, payments were processed through
an incomprehensible system of small brass canisters whizzing
along overhead tubes to some distant accounts’ department designed
by a submariner.
When I first moved to town aged 17, I was so green that when I needed milk or baked beans; that is where I went. In the first months of becoming a Londoner, Harrods was the only place that didn’t frighten me.
It's been years since I went there, but this week my friend Ornella persuaded me to go with her to buy a dog collar.
It felt like the right time to make a sentimental journey before it becomes a crackhouse. 

It's well on the way….

Selfridges, Harvey Nicks & Liberty all reinvented themselves years ago. Even Peter Jones, that sturdy-ankled matron of department stores got refurbished.
Foolish Harrods, smug in its reputation as top dog, got left behind.
For years, its wonderful operatic exterior has been the only thing left to enjoy because inside it had solidified into a brassy, overpriced strictly-tourist-only tat trap. It even has white china elephants in the windows.

Walking through the western doors, the first sight is the mawkish bronze statue of Diana & al Fayed Jr wrestling with a seagull.
At the base is the legend ‘Innocent Victims’.
After costing the taxpayer £12.5m to discover what we all knew all along, ie. drunk driver – no seat belts, al Fayed Snr is still using this ‘art’ to peddle his tired allegations that they were killed by MI6, in league with French & American intelligence, on the orders of the 'Nazi racist Frankenstein' Prince Philip.
Far from persuading us that the royal family are to blame, this unfortunate statue only serves to remind that if there is any culpability - beyond the drunken machismo of Henri Paul - it lies at the door of the person who chose Paul over the regular chauffeur to drive that night: his employer, al Fayed Sr.

We decided against spending £3 on a cup of Harrods tea in the empty café, instead we wandered through one Marie Celeste department after another, until we finally reached the lifts. Doors slid back, tumbleweed blew out & we rode up to the fourth floor and the Pet Department.

Here they seemed not to have stocked with the crunch in mind and are still trying to sell three-tiered 'candy canine' wedding cakes & mahogany Napoleonic campaign bed versions of the dog basket. For the pet with an investigative mind, there was a tweed Sherlock Holmes outfit [See Below. Note matching fore & aft tweed hat] that could be tried on in the dog changing rooms. 

I guess if these animals are forced into clothes often enough they eventually get freaked out by their own furry nakedness.

Ornella found an overpriced diamonté collar for The Notorious P.U.G, the gloriously named puppy she is shortly to take delivery of - but whisper it softly – the reason for the new one is that she dropped her last pug out of her car for a run - & ran it over. 

Let's hope no one pops a cap into this one.

We made our escape from Pets through the Toy Department. Again, we were the only visitors & instantly drew the fire of massed ranks of floor-walking demonstrators who swarmed us with helicopters, somersaulting ducklings and giant bubbles in a desperate bid to prise open, if not our hearts, then our purses.

We took cover by a huge table of overpriced E-Z Snow - a bizarre display since everyone is quite relieved spring has arrived after the unusually large amounts of snow this year. If there’s anyone out there pining for more, you can buy it fake for around £350 a drift.

I feinted left and bought a tiny plastic penguin to fend off the ravenous staff, while Ornella barrel-rolled to the right and picked our exit. We fled through the parting hail of yoyos and boomerangs and only managed to calm ourselves after bulk-buying heavenly Prestat violet cremes as we made our escape through the ground floor.

If Harrods is out of step with the times, then what are we to make of the Pope's latest comments?
At the start of his African visit he declares condoms 'are part of the problem' in the AIDS epidemic currently killing 20m people there. His solution? A criminally naive call for 'chastity & fidelity'.
It would have been marginally more helpful to suggest ‘bromide & castration’. Following his line of argument into other areas of life: no Catholic should ever lock their front door, or their car, or anything else they value. Why? Because theft is wrong.
I can't imagine how millions of averagely intelligent Catholics can listen to the old Uncle Fester look-alike without wanting to renounce him. They have as their leader a man who blithely endangers the lives of millions in a place where the majority have precious little other than their health and their faith.
Time for another Anti-pope I think.
The owner of Harrods might be looking for a new occupation soon…and he has some of the required credentials, being already well versed in the dissemination of rubbish.


Postscript.
Games To Play With Teenagers:
The ten-year validity on my children’s passports is about to run out. 

This weekend, we went to update their pictures to send with the renewal forms.
For the most pleasing results, I find it best to stand outside the photo booth & leave them to privately arrange themselves, then just as the camera is about to flash – shriek 'Look normal!' through the curtain.

& One Last Thing....

People discussing the death of Jade Goody keep saying her story is a modern phenomenon, yet her life arc has huge parallels with Zola's Nana, published back in 1880.  The main difference is strikingly more sex in his story than in hers.

[Header Illustration:  Somebody's Watching Me  [Collage]

this Spring we shall be wearing stair carpet

I went to meet teachers today, many of whom have comedy names... the school not only has a Peter Jones, but his matching pair, John Lewis. 

 I spent a happy ten minutes with a charming man called Mr Grocock.

 It baffles me why he would want to keep such a name.  

When I lived in Africa I was friendly with a charming, drunken Japanese diplomat who was Second Secretary at his embassy.  I asked him what his job entailed and he said.....'my whole life is a Sisyphean task of trying to control peoples' sniggering.  I go ahead, meet delegates and dignitaries and then I say the Ambassadors name a lot in advance of his arrival to try and desensitize them; it never works.'  The ambassador, Mr Kumamoto had a perfectly normal name in Japanese, but in Swahili, it means

Mr Hot Cunt.  

The Japanese now have a Kumamoto stadium so during certain games in the World Cup the whole of East Africa is convulsed. 

At least Mr Kumamoto could go home and be Mr Normalname

A surname is not a legality, it is merely a convention.

The myths and taboos around a 'family' name have a great deal to do with the centuries of bullshit that perpetuates the misogynist convention of primogeniture. 

'It can't go to a girl, because if she marries she no longer carries the family name'. 

Wrong.  Her name never automatically or legally becomes her husband's.  The convention can just as easily be reversed: her husband can change his name to hers.

 If both parties keep their own names, their children can still bear her name, rather than his. 

As for titles, there is no law banning them from passing through the female line.

Henceforth, I would like to be known as an Archduchess.

 Traditionally, the only way families have controlled the dissipation of possessions: land, houses, bling, goats etc is through an inherent unfairness: 0ne child is necessarily favoured over the others.  

The introduction of a chronological prejudice, rather than a sexist one is way, way, way over due.

 The Queen, as top hereditary dog - and woman - is in the perfect position to advocate a change toward the eldest child, rather than the eldest son becoming the heir. 

Dull old trout that she is, it would be by far and away most interesting decision of her reign. 

It wouldn't even have to ruffle her leaden conventionality because the next two generations are blokes anyway. 

I don't understand why this debate never makes it onto the political agenda...

well I do understand, obviously.... 

In the meantime girls, remember remember: the most powerful form of oppression is when the oppressed enforce it themselves.

 [ Exhibit 1. the genitally mutilated women perform the act on the younger generation...& they in turn....  Exhibit 2. The disappointment women feel at having a daughter & their determination to doggedly carry on giving birth until a son appears.    

 Exhibits 3-35,000 lie on file  ] 

We are so used to it, we don't even think about it.  

Awake!  Rise up and use whatever name you like. 

In fact, ask, no, demand your husband changes his to yours - see how big an ask he thinks that is. 

After that - I think our next move is just going to have to be a worldwide mass withholding of sex until action over recycling, climate change, troop withdrawals  bonus capping - whatever actually gets done because this government is inert. 

 They bang on about climate change -  but they pour money into the car industry & why don't they hand out swingeing fines to all those thousands of companies who leave whole tower blocks with lights blazing all night?

 Our recycling accumulates in warehouses because, it is no longer being shipped to China.  

& yet they fail to come up with some local solution,  [crematoriums for the emergency backlog & lightweight coffins anyone?] which is what they should've done in the first place.

  The congestion charge extension is going to be removed?

  Why do we have to wait until 2010?

Take bankers' barmy bonus away? So, much talk so little action.  Why not just get on and do it - & I don't mean singling out  Fred Goodwin [a name quite as richly ironic as Bernard Madoff's is apt] as a scapegoat, but remove the bonuses, the entire top executive & middle management too.  Get retrospective on their motherfucking asses.

What can anyone do with $100m for Chrissake?

Anyway, Fred Goodwin has already made a fortune touring with Riverdance.

Ok, and one last thing - why has Ken Livingstone's hideous building programme of something like 30 tower blocks across London not been shelved?  He only championed it because he has a baby toe-sized penis and twenty-five floors of concrete are the mayoral version of the penis extension.  

Which  brings me back to Mr Grocock.