mystery in bicester
.JPG "bicester station as it looks today")
Recently I was playing cricket in a place called Bicester.
Bicester is a word that has been designed for people not from the UK to pronounce badly.
The train was reasonably full on the way there, but coming into Bicester station there seemed to be no real town to speak of. Just a station, and some roads.
I fully expected to get off with 3 or 4 other people and just wait for my lift. I was the only person on my carriage that was even getting off at Bicester.
When I did get off, the station suddenly turned into the busiest in the UK.
Most of the other carriages had hundreds of people getting off, mostly Asian (Asian Asian, not subbie Asian).
While I was trying to work out where I needed to go, they all just filed into a line at the bus stop, and then were ushered onto the bus one by one. When one bus was full, another would pull up like some Army drill and the people would continue to get on.
Eventually all the buses were full, and yet the people still stayed in the line, waiting to be taken to who knows where.
Then after 5 or 10 minutes more buses turned up and the whole thing started up again. Another train arrived, and they all still automatically knew what to do.
I was baffled. Other than a handful of locals, which is all I expected, I couldn’t see why all these people knew what to do, and where the hell they were being bussed.
Immediately I came up with the most logical explanation, this was a cult. There was no other explanation, these people were too well organised and behaved, what else would they be doing out here.
I got closer to them, and tried to listen to any conversations that would help me. Unfortunately few of them spoke in English, so that helped me very little.
Then I checked out the bus, and that is when I lost interest, it wasn’t a cult, it was for some super outlet shopping centre or something. Boring.
But, think about it, if you were running a cult, what would be a better cover than having a shopping mall in the middle of nowhere in some place that most people pronounce incorrectly.
Genius.
TK Maxx
I am not a big fan of shopping, i like my second hand stores, clothes or vinyl, but anything else is a chore.
Usually if i need something I use the internet, easy, clean, and it comes to me.
But I needed new shoes, and buying shoes on the internet always worries me, because i have an odd little toe, “the raptor claw” (named after the little toe of the raptor in Jurassic park), and without trying shoes on the claw can get damaged.
Sexy isn’t it.
As you can see here, the toe always gets a little inflamed, even by shoes I have had for years, so it is important to try them on first.
I was told the best place to get shoes was TK Maxx, so i popped in to have a look.
This TK Maxx place has everything, it is like a huge bargain basement bin, where all the unfashionable major label clothing can be found.
Being that I know nothing about fashion, and care even less about what is in right now, this is the store for me.
I now have a pair of shoes that are part loafers, part runners. Genius.
I found the perfect pair of jeans (sorry Iain).
Two pairs of shorts, a new back pack, 6 pairs of socks, and a pair of sun glasses.
All for under 100 quid.
They are all big brands: umbro, bench, volcom, sketchers, etc.
Why doesn’t everyone buy from them?
It’s cheap, doesn’t make you look like a wiggle, and seems to be put together well.
Although I am glad they don’t, as that will leave more cheap crap for me.
Borough market
The first time I went to Borough Market, I almost wept. 
The smells were overwhelming.
It was how you would expect Jesus to smell.
That was on a saturday though, when people go to eat and shop.
It was almost too much for me to take in on that day.
Now I go there every week, on thursdays, when the people who don’t know what they want, the people who standing the middle of the walkway, or the tourists don’t get in my way.
And it’s still wonderful, even without the cooking jesus smell.
It’s unfair to compare it to Australian markets most notably the Queen Vic Market, for one reason, the Queen Vic smells like fucken fish.
Its more than just the lack of skanky fish smell, the food is awesome.
I like to start off by getting myself some beef and mustard sausages.
Beef, or beef like sausages, are the main sausages in Australia, but in the UK its all about the pork, and I had long ago given up ever getting Beef, or beef like, sausages, the Borough doesn’t only have them, but they are awesomeness.
From there I go to pick up my button and chestnut mushrooms, some granny smith apples (harder to find over here than at home), potatoes (sweet and conventional for my famous jrod orange mash), and bananas.
Then i pop over for some smoked back bacon, the guys there wear dirty bowler hats and have some sort of an old english kitsch thing going on, usually that would be enough to scare me away from the, but the bacon is good i ignore their wankiness.
After that is my favourite part of the whole trip, the BEER stall.
Oh it’s pure magnificent wonderfulness.
I have tried over 30 beers so far, so I won’t take you through them all, but the top 4 are:
Alhambra from Spain have tried about 5 of their beers, and even the crap ones are great, but their premier bottle, “reserva 1925″ is how beer is supposed to be.
Zatec from the Czech Republic is just pure class, it should be way more famous.
Casablanca Lager, which I only got cause of the film, was superb, and I can only imagine gets better on a warm day.
UFO beer, raspberry beer, no really, and it’s good, promise.
Once I have done the beer, I go onto to my field mushroom shop, they have bigger field mushrooms than your face, and i know i haven’t met you, but trust me these are huge.
And then i go home, my arms are sore, but i read the beer bottles on the tube, and everyone looks at me reading beer bottles thinking “what is it with this guy”.
But I am happy, because I have been to the borough, and i know once my beers get chilled i can have one.
I wont drink them warm, I’m not an animal.
Argos
The future of shopping is here.
It involves catalogues and little neon signs.
The shop is called Argos, and to say shopping there fucked with my rality is putting it accuratley.
It’s not a store in a conventional way, you can’t wlk around, there are no aisles of produts.
Instead there are catalogues, and you browse through them, find your product, write down the code, go the the machine with your code, put the code in the machine, see if the item is in the storeroom, pay for the item using the machine and your plastic card, the machine spits out a receipt with a special number on it, then you sit down on plastic chairs, you wait for the neon sign to show your special number, then you go to the front counter, where there is no line, just a long counter with various people holding their little bits of paper with their special numbers that have been shown on the neon sign, you wait there for some time, until the one person behind the counter takes your receipt checks the special number with the packages behind them and either gives you your package or tells you to wait longer.
This all takes about 15-20 minutes.
And you don’t get to see the item until you have gone through all this process.
It does seem counter-intuitive.
Think of it like doing internet shopping, out of your home, with the chance to look at porn, without the huge savings, with other people around, but with a 20 minute wait, not a 5-11 day wait.
I am sure Argos would explain it as a way for them to keep their rents down and passing the savings on to you.
I got the feeling if i went to a proper store, found the department I wanted, found the tiem I wanted, went and paid for it, it probably would have been quicker.
And being that it was a toilet seat I was buying, i could have road tested it as well.
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