Borders, fail

borders_fail
Originally uploaded by sashinka-uk

I love(d) the Borders in Brent Cross.

It was the first place I took Zaphod, when I went out and about to do things with him. And I remember thinking how big the one year old kids looked.

And it was (is?) a great place to go and browse. Big store, lots of sofas, a Paperchase concession if you had a stationeryist yearning.

And bookstores are good. Sure, I can price check anything and get it delivered on my Amazon Prime account, but nothing will ever take away browsing and finding. The spontaneous. The unusual. The random.

And now, it's like vultures. (I'm as guilty as anyone else). The store is heaving with people who wouldn't have gone there before, and they're all grabbing at the remaining books, and wondering over the weird gifty stuff they seem to have started selling and ... it's busy. Way busier than it was in normal life.

They haven't hoovered, and they're all going to lose their jobs anyway, so the staff are not - understandably - feeling so customer service oriented, and it's all just... sad.

Had a nice coffee with S+D, though.

Last time, probably.