The Mall

 Groovy gal

Madeleine and I hit Westfield London which opened in '08 and offers 150,000m² of retail space or the equivalent of about 30 football pitches - the thing is God damn big.  I ask myself : how many styles of trainer can one look at ?

In my day, the closest mall was Hilltop in Richmond, California, which opened in 1976 and built on land previously occupied by the Chevron Oil Corporation tank farm.  There was parking for miles. Christmas lights went up in October and, in 7th grade, I shopped for a gold medallion to go with my feathered hair.  Now, when I consider Hilltop, I think of Dawn Of The Dead where a group of refugees hole up in a shopping complex to escape zombies.

England, as Napoleon famously said, is a nation of shopkeepers. Until Westfield, London's only mall was Queensway which turned-over clothing boutiques catering to mustachioed men and frizzy haired women. No Prada, no Gucci, no Banana Republic but there is a M&S.