I don’t believe Baudelaire wrote much about shopping. More’s the pity. But I bet his ennui and degout would have been in full flow if he’d spent this Saturday in Birmingham at the Bullring shopping mall (is that an adequate word to describe this temple to enlightenment through shopping? I fear not), queueing to get into a queue to get onto a escalator to join another queue to get into Selfridges to join a queue to part with his hard earned cash.
Think I might go a write a slim volume of exquisite yet degenerate verse.
Gilbert Wham said,
December 17, 2007 at 1:47 pm
The Metro Centre up here in the Frozen North is equally vile. I cannot go to such places. They make me harbour violent fantasies of running amuck with Boomstick & Chainsaw like Ash in the Evil Dead and I am out of sorts for the whole day. Plus, I immediately get hopelessly fucking lost.
Debi said,
December 17, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Oh my. That is VERY VERY scary. Hard to tell which of the moving parts is human (if any).
I’d rather hold a cat’s nose any day of the week …
Curious Bystander said,
December 17, 2007 at 3:31 pm
Amateurs. You’ve seen nothing until you’ve been to Tysons Corners. (There are two of them, right near each other.)
Curious Bystander said,
December 17, 2007 at 3:32 pm
Oh, this is even better. The Wikipedia page on Tysons Corner has a photo, as many Wikipedia pages do. But is the photo of the mall? No! I quote from the caption: “Clouds over Tyson’s Corner Mall”
Yet another reason Wikipedia should be wiped from the face of the earth.
Billy said,
December 17, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Laissez-moi respirer longtemps, l’odeur de tes shopping!
betty said,
December 17, 2007 at 7:40 pm
My enduring memory of the Bullring is of sitting in a grotty cafe watching a toothless old woman opposite folding mashed potato and gravy and eating the mixture off the edge of her knife.
That was in the 1980’s. I presume things have changed a lot.
flutter said,
December 17, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Whoa. It’s the Matrix of shopping
Rilly Super said,
December 17, 2007 at 8:42 pm
I think it is not baudelaire you became at the weekend my dear, more Rimbaud, less fleurs du mal, more ‘don’t push me motherf***r!!!’
rivergirlie said,
December 18, 2007 at 9:54 am
greetings gilbert your feelings are quite understandable. (probably best not to indulge your deepseated desires, though – strangely, things like that seem to upset people)
debi if it was in b/w it would look like one of those german expressionist movies – metropolis or summat. cat’s nose – yes. dog’s bum – no.
curious i am an amateur – talented, mind you – but am quite happy to stay that way if tyson’s corner is the alternative. scarrrrrry!
billy, billy, billy you just go on getting better and better!
betty i expect that toothless crone was me! the bullring has been poshed up, as you can see. but the essential brumminess can never be expunged. orrroight?
flutter the matrix, indeed. and a very over-crowded matrix at the moment.
rilly my dearest! you know what i mad mutha i am at heart! and thank you for that delightful pun – you’ve inspired another post. xxxx
Aimz said,
December 18, 2007 at 7:41 pm
I love the Bullring! However I find that Touchwood is better if you want a less hectic, more refined atmosphere!
The Bullring is more about ‘fashionable’ clothes and Touchwood had ‘John Lewis’! Need I say more??
Istvanski said,
December 18, 2007 at 8:09 pm
I find Birmingham to be similar to Luton but on a larger scale. It’s very hard to escape from by car.
Moobs said,
December 23, 2007 at 11:44 pm
This is why I love the internet and the birth of a new christmas tradition: the Amazon has failed to deliver your present IOU.
Merry Christmas to you and your famille.
rockmother said,
December 28, 2007 at 6:57 pm
When you see photo’s like that you can almost understand indiscriminate mall shootings! Well, ok, not really but you know what I mean…I can’t do squishy sweaty shopping malls like that. All those escalators look like a modern day Hieronymous Bosch to me – hideous – lots of people going permanently up and down to hell. Aaagh – let me out!
Hope you had a lovely Christmas and are not too exhausted. xx
emma said,
December 29, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Come on now, you must embrace the joys of internet shopping and Ebay like I do! I did not even leave the house to shop this year (but only because my hubby did all the christmas shopping). Happy New Year!
Mangonel said,
December 31, 2007 at 3:36 am
Ah – Baudelaire, always with his head in the clouds. He was always chasing Rimbauds, no?
Cronznet said,
January 1, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Yes, e-mail addy recently changed. thajir414@q.com is the new one. James is quite welcome and it would be lovely to hear from him!
patroclus said,
January 4, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Baudelaire would have shot Rimbaud a lot sooner if they’d had to go Christmas shopping toether, I’m sure. Whenever I used to go to Ikea with ex-Mr P, we were ready to kill each other before we’d even got there.
patroclus said,
January 4, 2008 at 5:35 pm
PS brilliant post title!
wyndham said,
January 7, 2008 at 4:43 pm
I love shopping but then I look a battery chickens enviously. If you want me to go shopping on your behalf, please feel free to bung over your credit card details.
Happy New Year, RG!
cronznet said,
January 8, 2008 at 11:45 pm
I’ve just read about Selfridge’s for the second time in my life (the first being here) in Laurie R. King’s new novel, “Touchstone.” Much is made of it by the aristocracy in the novel.
With all the blog contests (NaBLoPoMo and Blog 365) going ’round, I’m wondering whether perhaps you might have signed up with some sort of Only Once Month Posters? (tongue firmly in cheek).
Raf said,
February 22, 2008 at 4:09 pm
‘les fleurs du mall’ – genius. I might have to nick that at some stage. sorry.