Somewhere famous: Harrods Judging by the volume of tourists who make tracks to this giant department store on the Brompton Road, 'Harrods' must be one of the most well-known words in the English language. I bet most of them don't realise that the store's origins lie in Stepney in the East End, where Charles Henry Harrod first established a grocery business in the 1830s. He moved to rural Knightsbridge in 1849, just before the area headed upmarket bigtime, and by the turn of the century Harrods employed 2000 staff and had enlarged to occupy all the surrounding properties. House of Fraser took over the franchise in 1959, but for the last 20 years the store has been owned by "visionary businessman Mohamed Al Fayed" (about whom I'll not hear a bad word said in case he sues). The building is on a vast scale, like a retail fortress, with more than 100 departments covering more than five acres crammed onto seven floors. Finding your way around this dimly-lit warren of rooms, passages and escalators is a bit of a nightmare, so much so that you can imagine entire Japanese families being lost inside for weeks. I disappeared for an hour.
I must have passed the entrance examination because the doorman let me in without sneering. I advanced through several rooms that sold what the proprietor would call designer luxury goods, but which I'd just call overpriced posh stuff for toffs. Grinning permatanned fragrance operatives stood poised to spray some blend of musky floral spices over passing female shoppers. Of Mrs Slocombe or Mr Humphries there was no sign. I passed through into the legendary food halls, won over by the genuine period charm of the seafood counters but unimpressed by the overbearing glitzy decor of the food hamper room. I was in search of a light lunchtime snack, and in the bakery I found the perfect local delicacy - a Chelsea bun. I had to queue behind an elderly gentleman using his Harrods Gold Card to buy £2.70 worth of bread, and a Burberry-collared lady forking out four quid each for four small fudge madeira cakes. I guess it must have been cheaper than hiring servants to bake for her. Nevertheless I was impressed that my extra-sticky bun cost less than a quid, and that the bakery's fresh pain au chocolats were on sale for 30p less than in the Starbucks franchise in the basement.
Onward and upward, into the heart of the store. The selection of luggage was hideous, the menswear wasn't my style and the furniture seemed unnecessary. In the Christmas decoration department my ears were assaulted (for the first time this year) by the strains of Roy Wood and Wizzard, while all around people with more money than taste snapped up gaudy imitation greenery and giant-sized stockings with luxury gold trimming. At least Father Christmas won't be here for another month. And I didn't dare venture into the gentlemen's luxury washroom on the fourth floor for fear of being ostracised by failing to tip the uniformed valet wanting to squirt perfumed soap into my sweaty palm. Tourists seemed content to head mostly for the Harrods World souvenir departments (20th anniversary bears were piled high) and the current Truly British exhibition (postage stamp upholstery, anyone?). The financial mainstay of the department store, however, is the serious shopper with serious money. There were whole departments where every customer was wearing brown and/or green, perhaps with a beige tweed jacket or russet corduroy trousers to top off that upmarket landed gentry look. These people were genuinely excited by the products on sale, perhaps because their second home needed a new rug or maybe because there isn't yet a high-definition home cinema in the west wing. Hell, why shop anywhere else?
I'd heard that Mr Al Fayed had installed a memorial to Princess Diana and his son, but I was unprepared for its sheer unadulterated tackiness (not helped, I have to add, by being situated at the foot of the Egyptian escalator opposite a huge gold-painted sarcophagus). Portraits of the two doomed aristocrats appear in interlinked gold rings above a bronze fountain surrounded by white flowers and four glowing candles. A central plastic pyramid contains both Dodi's engagement ring and a lipstick-smudged wine glass from the couple's last evening together (not that anybody in the car was drunk, of course). But the most disturbing thing about the memorial was the mass of people gathered in front of it, reverently reading the plaque, admiring the kitsch design or lining up their mobile phone camera to capture this garish tableau for posterity. I bet none of the onlookers were thinking about poor dear dead Dodi either, even though the memorial's official title gives his name top billing.
I was mortified when I got home to discover that there was another more recent memorial to Di and Dodi in the store called Innocent Victims (a bronze couple dancing beneath an albatross, no less), which I had somehow managed to overlook during my tour of the building. That's the trouble with Harrods, it's just too bloody big. And quite tasteless. by tube: Knightsbridge, by bus: 14, 74
Judging by the volume of tourists who make tracks to this giant department store on the Brompton Road, 'Harrods' must be one of the most well-known words in the English language. I bet most of them don't realise that the store's origins lie in Stepney in the East End, where Charles Henry Harrod first established a grocery business in the 1830s. He moved to rural Knightsbridge in 1849, just before the area headed upmarket bigtime, and by the turn of the century Harrods employed 2000 staff and had enlarged to occupy all the surrounding properties. House of Fraser took over the franchise in 1959, but for the last 20 years the store has been owned by "visionary businessman Mohamed Al Fayed" (about whom I'll not hear a bad word said in case he sues). The building is on a vast scale, like a retail fortress, with more than 100 departments covering more than five acres crammed onto seven floors. Finding your way around this dimly-lit warren of rooms, passages and escalators is a bit of a nightmare, so much so that you can imagine entire Japanese families being lost inside for weeks. I disappeared for an hour.
I must have passed the entrance examination because the doorman let me in without sneering. I advanced through several rooms that sold what the proprietor would call designer luxury goods, but which I'd just call overpriced posh stuff for toffs. Grinning permatanned fragrance operatives stood poised to spray some blend of musky floral spices over passing female shoppers. Of Mrs Slocombe or Mr Humphries there was no sign. I passed through into the legendary food halls, won over by the genuine period charm of the seafood counters but unimpressed by the overbearing glitzy decor of the food hamper room. I was in search of a light lunchtime snack, and in the bakery I found the perfect local delicacy - a Chelsea bun. I had to queue behind an elderly gentleman using his Harrods Gold Card to buy £2.70 worth of bread, and a Burberry-collared lady forking out four quid each for four small fudge madeira cakes. I guess it must have been cheaper than hiring servants to bake for her. Nevertheless I was impressed that my extra-sticky bun cost less than a quid, and that the bakery's fresh pain au chocolats were on sale for 30p less than in the Starbucks franchise in the basement.
I'd heard that Mr Al Fayed had installed a memorial to Princess Diana and his son, but I was unprepared for its sheer unadulterated tackiness (not helped, I have to add, by being situated at the foot of the Egyptian escalator opposite a huge gold-painted sarcophagus). Portraits of the two doomed aristocrats appear in interlinked gold rings above a bronze fountain surrounded by white flowers and four glowing candles. A central plastic pyramid contains both Dodi's engagement ring and a lipstick-smudged wine glass from the couple's last evening together (not that anybody in the car was drunk, of course). But the most disturbing thing about the memorial was the mass of people gathered in front of it, reverently reading the plaque, admiring the kitsch design or lining up their mobile phone camera to capture this garish tableau for posterity. I bet none of the onlookers were thinking about poor dear dead Dodi either, even though the memorial's official title gives his name top billing.
Judging by the volume of tourists who make tracks to this giant department store on the 
I must have passed the entrance examination because the doorman let me in without sneering. I advanced through several rooms that sold what the proprietor would call designer luxury goods, but which I'd just call overpriced posh stuff for toffs. Grinning permatanned fragrance operatives stood poised to spray some blend of musky floral spices over passing female shoppers. Of Mrs Slocombe or Mr Humphries there was no sign. I passed through into the legendary food halls, won over by the 
I'd heard that Mr Al Fayed had installed a 