This was the day with the shopping, you may call it what you like, as the itinerary demonstrated, "retail toursim" or "exploration" and whatnot. We were going to do some Marxy gravy thing at Highgate cemetary, but nevermind.

 

Shoes.

 

In any case we went to spitterfields markets, where Londonian Hipsterdom unfurled itsself in front of us in all it's glory and knitted sweaters. Seriously, the amount of small, half-grown moustaches that looked like they'd been squeezed out in about three minutes was both surprising and frightening on the most primal level. Like a skinny-chinoed lovecraftian horror was always behind us, prepared to devour both our bodies and nice jackets should we ever look it in the eye. We were going to go to Camden markets for the entire day but that was too mainstream, this was the point that we realised tht we ourselves had also turned into hipsters, and the slow erosion of our souls began. Also I bought some hats, hats are nice.

 

It was quite amazing really, there were bangladeshi peacock feather salesmen lining the streets (or rather there was one) and people trying to get all the passing hipsters into their restaurants and at the same time trying to out do the other restaurants, each trying to get people in with more and more ludicrous deals, ranging from a "buy-one-get-one-free thali" to a "come-inside-our-shop-and-we-will-give-you-the-shop." For some this was their first experience with heckiling, some people were so inexperienced with the affair that they ended up paying more than what they started out with, not really, that was not true, from now on I'll be honest. I bought some coat tails, coat tails are nice.

 

After this we went to Camden markets, which as it turns out, had been burnt down in 2003 and converted into a tourism district. There were a large amount of touristish things but tucked away in the alcoves were some nice shops that looked as if they were unchanged since 1880, which is how all things should be in my opinion, and we should all be wearing beaver hats, coat tails and cavalry boots.

 

Pablo El Cid

(Hayden Cooper)