1 t's my niece's sixth birthday and when I ask
her what she would like she says, 'I'd like to go shopping with you.' Naturally I oblige, not only because, as I have said before, buying a child's affection is so much easier and more effective than having to work at it and do dreary craft things with blunt scissors and a Pritt Stick, but because she has been rather in the wars lately. Indeed, she fell off the monkey bars at school, whatever those are, which meant an ambulance dash and then a two-day stay in hospital having her forehead sewn back together. Of course, by the time she and her parents finally got home, their answer machine was full of messages from the school saying they were putting together 17 full reports on the incident and the fate of the monkey bars was hanging in the balance. Fear of litigation, I suppose. Oh, litigation, litigation, litigation. You know, just once, when I'm at home in the afternoon pretending to work but watching telly. I would like to hear an ad that goes, 'Had an accident at work? Well, tough shit. This stuff happens. Someone to blame? Yes, you, you clumsy old oaf. Why didn't you look where you were going?' And I particularly enjoyed Mrs Colin Montgomerie's claim in her divorce papers that her marriage had caused her 'anxiety and depression'. Darling, whose hasn't?
Anyway. I decide we will go to Selfridges. I am very fond of Selfridges. If I recall rightly, my mother took me to Selfridges (Christ, it must be 30 years ago now) to buy my first bra — a 32 AA that did up at the front. Alas, it was meant to be a starter bra but that was it, I'm afraid. No further progress to report. Perhaps, now I think about it, this is why no one at The Spectator will sleep with me. I know, I know, this whole business has gone on for too long now. It's boring. But I am still trying to figure it out. I tell you what, one last go, one final offer. How about this: I will scamper across fields while allowing any takers to chase me on horseback while wearing red and blowing a trumpety thing.* Come on, Roger Scruton, you know you want to. And that is my last word on the matter. True, I do not have an abundant or voluptuous bosom, but I do have my dignity, or would have if I hadn't put it down somewhere in 1972 and never found it again. (Should you chance upon it, I'd be most grateful if you could put it in an envelope and send it to me care of The Spectator. It would be nice to have it back. I can't even remember what it feels like to have dignity any more!) So, Selfridges. Selfridges is, of course, nothing like it used to be, when all the assistants were bony spinsters with moustaches and when pausing for a snack meant a dry scone and cup of tepid tea. Now, all that fustiness has been banished and it's a temple of cool with an astonishing 21 groovy places you can stop to eat: Balcony Bar, Base, Brass Rail, Café 400, Coffee Bar, Eat, Espresso, Food Garden Café, Gallery, Gordon's, HaagenDazs Café, Iguazu, Lab, Moat Bar, Momo, Oyster Bar, Seat)' Pretzels, Sienna Café, Square Pie, Starbucks and Yo! Sushi. So, not like John Lewis then, which has only The Place To Eat and which, I can assure you, isn't. I'd meant to head for the Food Garden Cafe, which sounds a nice familyfriendly place, hut it's a Saturday, dizzyingly busy and we get hopelessly lost. As I feel I cannot drag Frankeniece and her scarily stitched forehead around for ever, we decide to eat in the next place we come across, which turns out to be the Gallery. This is on the ground floor, but on a mezzanine level overlooking the accessories department, thus giving us an excellent view of the sort of women happy to spend £700 on a Gucci or Chanel or Prada handbag. 1 have nothing against the sort of woman who happily spends £700 on a handbag even though she is probably as thick as anything, and surely needs some sense knocking into her.
The Gallery is waitress service, so we are taken to a table. I can't remember a great deal about the decor now, except that it was contemporary and beige. The clientele, on the whole. appear to be chichi mothers out for a Saturday shop with their chichi grownup daughters. The look for the daughters is: blonde ironed hair; tight jeans with diatnante belt; something a little cashmerey on top; pointy boots or those Ugg(ly) ones. The look for the mothers is ditto apart from the hair, which is more immensely startled meringue. The staff are delightful. 'Oh dear, what have you done to your head?' the lady who seats us asks Frankeniece. Frankeniece recounts the whole story. 'Oh dear, what have you done to your head?' asks the waitress who brings us the menus. Frankeniece recounts the whole stoty. 'Oh dear, what have you... 'begins the waitress who brings us bread. 'Enough about her head!' I say. 'As it happens, I have a very bad headache. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean I'm not in pain. Oh, oh, oh, it hurts.' We are accompanied by my son, who finds this so amusing he says he is never going to be seen in public with me again.
We're brought bread rolls — olive, walnut, plain — and they are wonderful, obviously baked on the premises. I think we have six each before we even get round to ordering. The mineral water we've ordered comes in a huge groovy test-tubeshaped thing, which is fun. The menu is international eclectic, I would say, with a good selection of salads for, I'm guessing, ladies who lunch. I order the pea, mint and feta salad, which is just as it should be: fresh: sweet, crunchy peas; crisp lettuce; not too over-dressed. My son has the duck served with stir-fried noodles and it's actually terrific, with the duck slightly charred on the outside yet meltingly pink inside. It cost £10, but I think I'd happily have paid more for it in a non-departmentstore restaurant. Frankeniece? She has the chicken satay with a portion of chips. Again, top-quality juicy meat beautifully presented on glamorous white crockery. I'm really impressed. And all in all, including some very freshly squeezed juices, the hill came to about £30, which is fair enough, I think. No, we don't hang about for dessert, but that's because we have our own shopping to do. I get Frankeniece some fah boots in the children's department and then it's home in a cab. Apparently, and much to the horror of Frankeniece and son, I not only drop off, but snore quite loudly with my mouth hanging open. If you do see my dignity, please do try to send it on. I feel I really, really need it back.
*When captured, I am happy to roll about a bit in a ditch, but nothing too bitey with hounds, thank you very much.
Selfridges, 400 Oxford Street, London WI. Tel: 0870 8377 377.
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