By Ben Golding

What a great place to come and hate everyone

The day after boxing day. A nothing day. A grey day. A Sunday.

Through factors outside of my control I find myself in a small to medium sized shopping mall. Well its more of a plaza.

People rush around frantically; buying, exchanging, re-buying. As if Christmas wasn’t enough, they have to buy all the things they had their eye on yet no-one picked up on the hints about. So heres some notes, a scribbled crib-sheet about an undisclosed location. Just a few thoughts after people watching and vacant browsing, following my feet for an hour or so.

• ‘Mate’ is the secret weapon of Apple store employees
• Starbucks selling flat whites has made it the drink du jour for teenage girls
• In this area there are only 3 acceptable haircuts for women under 35. (Long/ Long and dyed a bit/ Long but worn up)
• Men get even less choices – The extreme side parting (see TOWIE) or the short buzzcut (see premature balding)
• I always think that I hate my family around christmas, but now am reminded how nice it would be amongst only a handful of people.
• If you are not a wide-eyed sale rail sifter, the security guard will follow you around H&M.
• Batman t-shirts are still a ‘thing’ down here.
• Someone should come up with a name for the North Face/ Berghaus/ SuperDry/ Parker/ Utility type jackets that occasionally have a hood.
• It is now called a Generi-cket
• Generickets are ubiquitous here.
• Just a smidge of crippling self doubt today.
• God, I hate everyone.
• Just saw a man wearing shorts. In late December. It is definitely the South-West.
• What is the deal with Pandora jewellery?
• The Apple store is predatory.
• Maybe one day I’ll wear a ‘genius’ t-shirt and see if I can browse in peace.
• Maybe I’ll just take a stack of bibles and see if I can convert them.
• Wouldn’t it be good to dress up bargain hunters in war paint.
• This close to various seasonal binges its too tough to call pregnant or pot belly.
• Heelies would be the perfect escape from a robbery here.

There you have it, nonsense thoughts and somesense thoughts. A few scattered learnings in there I’m sure.