Harrods Means-Testing kids for Xmas Grotto

[Oldjohnw]

I have been to a couple of Hard Rock cafe's though I don't have any t-shirts to prove it.

p.s. I have suggested tea in the tea rooms at Herrods to visiting Americans, but I don't know if they did so.

I went to Fenwicks in Newcastle the other day. It's the first time I've ever been in there and though it's not my thing in the way shopping is not my thing it is impressive in its opulence (it is the original Fenwicks store). I had a coffee which cost no more than a coffee in Costa or Caffe Nero.

What did strike me (other than it was very busy) was that it felt like a place to visit if you are a 'shopper'. And though I've no interest in conspicuous consumption it made me feel that that is necessary if we want high streets to survive. I can imagine people wanting to go to Fenwicks in a way which they'd never think 'l want to go to Debenhams'. And l think in that way Harrods will survive too.

I spent 30 years in Newcastle. I never thought of Fenwick's as any other than a nice department store.

[Ben@Forest]

I spent 30 years in Newcastle. I never thought of Fenwick's as any other than a nice department store.

Exactly. It is nice. And unusually for a department store it still has a food hall. I don't know what it's been like before but it was refurbed with tile, stone and imitation marble a couple of years back. To anyone with any architectural or design nous it is interesting in a way that I've never seen in a Debenhams or even a John Lewis.

It's obviously going to be selling higher end products but that's its market. It can't compete on price with the internet so it has to provide an experience. Shopping is not really my thing but l can understand why they want to create a bit of a wow. This forum is full of 'l bought it for less on the internet' but people's jobs and living high streets are pretty important too.

[reohn2]

What has Christmas become?

[Cugel]

Hi all, I often see folk who will insist on using "Horrids" bags for all of their shopping, even in Aldi .
Must be the same type of people depicted in "Ab Fab", with an obsession for Harvey Nicks? Conspicuous Consumption!
Or as we would say around here - "All Fur Coat and No Knickers" .. IGICB MM

We use aldi bags in Tesco, Asda, sainsbury's and booths. Reverse snobbery?

Poof! The ladywife et moi use only artisanish hessian bags, preferably with no logo or a nice picture of a pig one one side and a butcher on the other. We like them best when they get slightly tatty thus indicating great re-use of the shopping bag, which allows us to sneer harder at them lugging only the plastic bag already ripping at the handles after one use and a stuffing with frozen ready meals + 7 impulse buys.

Now, as this is a cycling forum one feels there should be a snobbery joust concerning various aspects of the bicycles one owns. There is a Brompton snob theme here and there; and the one concerning hand-built steel frames. But shurely shome mishtake to neglect other cycling technologies as a fine basis for snobbery fests of one sort and another, including the reverse snobbing...?

Cugel

[Cugel]

I spent 30 years in Newcastle. I never thought of Fenwick's as any other than a nice department store.

Exactly. It is nice. And unusually for a department store it still has a food hall. I don't know what it's been like before but it was refurbed with tile, stone and imitation marble a couple of years back. To anyone with any architectural or design nous it is interesting in a way that I've never seen in a Debenhams or even a John Lewis.

It's obviously going to be selling higher end products but that's its market. It can't compete on price with the internet so it has to provide an experience. Shopping is not really my thing but l can understand why they want to create a bit of a wow. This forum is full of 'l bought it for less on the internet' but people's jobs and living high streets are pretty important too.

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I spent some time in Fenwicks as their magazine section was the only one in Tyneside (or so it seemed) stocking the Yank FIne Woodworking magazine. Even then I was a snob about woodworking, classing myself "cabinet-maker" and looking down on British magazines with ponderous articles about how to make a pine plant pot holder or an ugly table for the patio.

The food hall was my favourite bit as it had what was then exotica, such as red peppers and olives. Also silly-price chocs of which I could afford only two (eaten very slowly). At Christmas time I could easily spend several hours on the top floor toy display, where they often had a large model railway running, scalextric and various new-fangled toys never before seen. I'm a big kid as well as a snob, see?

Cugel

[Cyril Haearn]

A cabinet-maker, whose skill was immense, might perhaps have won more than his share
But a banker, engaged at enormous expense, had the whole of their cash in his care

The hunting of the Snark
Lewis Carroll

[Cugel]

A cabinet-maker, whose skill was immense, might perhaps have won more than his share
But a banker, engaged at enormous expense, had the whole of their cash in his care

The hunting of the Snark
Lewis Carroll

Which would the snark eat first? Bankers are generally plump & juicy whilst cabinet-makers are often a bit scrawny and full of dust.

Anyroadup, I have given the savings to a mutual building society to look after. The interest rate is about 0.00000001% but at least they use the dosh for the more affordable usury available to house buyers. Of course, no one but a banker can afford the deposit to get a mortgage these days.

*****
Now, I believe you are in a good position to start a poetry snob joust. There has been RS Thomas and now Lewis Carroll. What poets, though, should we curl a lip at, do you think? There's a good R S Thomas lip-curl poem about other poets. I will dig it out.

Cugel

[Sweep]

I wandered in out of vague interest two or three times donkeys years ago.

Always found it irritating to shop in - too much of a maze.

Did buy something there once or twice - household stuff as I recall.

Last time I was in I found I needed a pee - trailed all the way up the place past stacks and stacks of stuff - eventually somewhere near the top of the place found the toilet and found that I was expected to put some money in a slot to use it. Walked straight out and never been back since.

So Harrods, wouldn't micturate on/in it.

[mumbojumbo]

I would not take kids to Harrods even if it were free.Up here,in Sheffield we have our own top stores


http://www.picturesheffield.com/fronten ... ction=zoom

https://www.facebook.com/fultonfoods/

https://www.hpacde.org.uk/picturesheffi ... s00844.jpg

Plus top housing whch eclkipses Nitsbridge

https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/breaking ... ads-458586

Merry and a safe Xmas