Today was pay day, and with no iPad in sight until the end of next month, I thought I'd treat myself to a little bit of a post-work shopping spree in Westfield. And being a social networking, iPhone-toting whore, I found myself live-tweeting the experience to my
35 heaving throng of Twitter followers, who were no doubt on the edge of their seats wondering what shenanigans I'd get up to.
But because most of you who read this are a) not on Twitter (why not?) or b) not following me (WHY NOT?!), I thought I'd repost my adventure here for you to enjoy, with added notes that would've taken me past Twitter's 140 character limit. Think of it like a director's edition - y'know, where I add in all the pretentious bits that were sensibly cut out first time around and throw in some ridiculous new CG effects.
*waves at George Lucas*
Here we go then:
• Converse shoes are making farting sounds. Westfield shop assistants are clearly unamused.
Seriously, my Converse make a ridiculous noise. Quite frankly it's embarrassing. I try scrunching my toes up, but it doesn't work. The looks I was getting from the snooty assistants in House of Frazer were sufficiently potent as to be on the verge of vapourising me. A word of warning: next time we go out for drinks and dancing, you probably want to glance down at my feet to see if I'm wearing my Converse, because if I am chances are in a few more hours I'll be waving my hand under my nose and trying to deflect attention from the farting sound I'm generating by pinning it on you.
• Westfield smelling a bit like my #bikramyoga class - i.e. Sweaty.
It was weird, Westfield really did smell a bit like your mum's armpits today. Not a massively overpowering OHMYGOD - UGH smell, just that kind of salty sweat smell that hangs in the air. The funny thing is, after doing Bikram Yoga for almost a year, I actually quite like it now.
(notice first use of a '#' tag - or #ashtag as we Twitterers call them. I don't really know what they do, but everyone else uses them and I don't want to be left out)
• New ice cream stand looks like it's selling fruit sorbet and poo.
It did! There was, like, this really quite nice looking dark berry sorbet thing, but right next to it was this gross looking swirled brown mess that kind of curved up to a point like a massive dog had just squatted over the counter and pushed one out.
It made me feel a bit sick to be honest.
• Dear Next shop functionary: please do not look at me like I'm scum when I stray into the suit department. Kthxbai!
There must be something about me that shouts 'SHOPLIFTER!' because at least three shop assistants in various stores were clearly following me around, all of whom were ignorant to the fact that I was wearing slim-fitting jeans that I could barely get my keys in, let alone a handful of stolen merchandise. The guy in Next was the worst though. I rarely go into Next these days, but I was running out of places I could try to spend money so I thought I'd give it a bash. Next in Westfield is really quite big, and I wandered around the ironic t-shirt and checked shirt departments for quite some time (after skipping out of the sportswear section when some tubby old guy sidled up to me and started feeling - I mean REALLY feeling - a pair of Adidas running shorts I'd been looking at). After a while, and admittedly somewhat accidentally, I found myself in the suit department. There was no reason for me being there because I very rarely wear a suit, but I thought I might as well just walk through it to get to the exit.
About halfway through this dude just kind of leapt into my path, forcing me to come to a sudden halt. He literally looked me up and down like I was
trash, then said something. I was listening to music on my iPhone at the time, and this sort of thing really annoys me; I mean, these people can clearly see I've got headphones in, and there's a reason for that: stop talking to me! I popped one headphone out and went "WHAT?"
"Can I *help* you?" he said again, as if to suggest I might tarnish the fine garments on display in his department with my mere presence.
"No - no you can't," I replied, sneering just enough to put the fear of god in his mind that I might thump him on my way out.
(thanks to Glittering Lee for making the term 'functionary' one of my favourite words)
• Westfield shopping FAIL. Clearly subconsciously saving money for #ipad. *so* jealous of @indiaknight.
Yes, yes, another iPad mention. I do really want one; if you think it's bad now, just wait until I finally get one.
India Knight, if you don't know, is a writer and Sunday Times columnist, and one of my favourite Twitterers. She tweeted earlier that one of her friends is bringing an iPad back from the States for her. I say again: JEALOUS.
• There are too many people in Hollister, I can't see anything, and it smells like a tart's boudoir.
I went into Hollister (Abercrombie and Fitch's younger, hipper, cheaper off-shoot) to look for
t-shirts with tits on, and ended up seeing a
shirt I quite liked. Annoyingly, though, Hollister stores are really dark and always packed out, so you can't really see what you're looking at and some random is always bumping into you. The queues for the changing rooms and tills were really long, and while the staff here don't glare at you like you're about to pocket something, they do act like they want to be your friend; some dude that looked like James Franco just started talking at me, but because I had my headphones in I really couldn't understand a word he was saying. I eventually just said "cheers!" in a jaunty fashion; for all I know he might've been saying "I'm going to hunt you down and pound your face in with my shoe."
As for the smell, it was slightly overpowering but I actually quite liked it. I think that says rather a lot about me and my preferences.
I left after a few minutes because I was feeling somewhat disorientated.
• The escalators in M&S are like a bloody Escher painting. I just want to go to the food hall!
I swear I went from the first floor to the ground floor about three times.
• Just saw some kid massively stack it in the middle of Westfield. He's not crying, it's OK to laugh.
Yeah, that was pretty sweet. To be honest, I would've laughed even if he had cried. That probably would've just made it even funnier.
• Was just eyed up by some mega wasted cougar by the champagne bar. Feel so objectified.
Oh god, she was pretty gross; she was sprawled across the champagne bar in The Village part of Westfield (i.e. the posh bit) and trying to have a conversation with her equally wasted gal pals. It was like the West London equivalent of Sex and the City without the botox and more pendulous boobs. She was so drunk that when she leered at me one of her eyes was moving independently of the other one like a chameleon.
I felt DIRTY.
• Chap on till in Waitrose has hair like Prince circa 1984.
This was awesome - he was totally all like this, even down to the little moustache:
It could only have been more perfect if he'd been wearing a raspberry beret.
-----
And to end … Morris Dancers in Hammersmith at lunchtime in celebration of St. George's Day!
Listen carefully and you'll hear a little bit of commentary from me and Yazzle Dazzle here. At one point I say we should get closer, but "not too close"; Morris Dancers really used to freak me out as a kid.
What you don't see here, though, is the guy dressed as St. George (full armour!) riding a BMX made up to look like a horse with a massive pantomime horse head and body, pedalling furiously around Lyric Square. No. Expense. Spared.
I almost shat myself laughing.
INSTRUCTIONS!
