Wandered into town...

..I was getting a bit stir crazy....

Town was full of the usual underbelly types, which sounds patronising, but you try checking the Argos catalog for a USB stick on a Saturday. Full to the gill with rotweiler faced hags, middle aged women with dead-dog faces, pierced eyebrows and cropped hair. The usual uniform is jeans or trackies - trainers and a 'fun' T shirt and cheap coat that won't zip up because of their guts. Obligitory gold bling - and for some strange reason - a crude smudge of baby blue eyeshadow to 'feminise' themselves.

The HMV was the same - and the BHS and Debenhams were their own circles of hell. The little grotto in the shopping center looks like a prop from 'SAW'. Fresh faced kiddies passed laughing in through the front, then handed back to their parents 20 mins later through a hatch at the back - neatly parceled up in a carrier bag.

I saw a woman in Denhams unpack a small gift box for men - take out a tiny pair of underpants - look at them carefully and give them a crafty sniff, before popping them back in the box and replacing on the shelf.  In the pound shop, where I bought toothpaste - the boys on the till were talking about a news story they had heard on the radio...

" yeah - this bloke found loads of old people dead in their gardens - he's obviously up to no good"

I could see that there was a full blown riot in m&S food halls so I gave it a miss, and wandered back trough the Old Town. The Jenny Lind are broadcasting Xmas brass band music through an upstairs window. By this time there was freezing sleet.... it didn't feel very festive.