A shopping street that switches on its lights, a cat that made a mayor and a dairy family with unusually friendly addresses
Monday, Lights on Brompton Road
The Christmas lights arrived in Knightsbridge, and the avenues glowed gold. I wrote up the occasion in Knightsbridge Christmas lights, a Budget hangover and Dick Whittington. The Budget hangover refers to the mood of the week, when commentators were busy reading a thick document and shoppers were busy ignoring it. The Dick Whittington part is the legend.
The story goes that a poor boy named Dick Whittington came to London, heard the bells of the city say that he would be lord mayor, and succeeded with the help of a cat. The real Richard Whittington was a wealthy merchant who served as Lord Mayor of London several times in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. The cat appears in later telling, and historians have debated how it got there. Pantomime has done the rest.
Light and Colour on the Road
A few weeks earlier the road had held a different festival. I reported on the light show in Harrods lights up for Diwali on Brompton Road. Diwali, the festival of lights, is celebrated by many communities across London, and a public display on a famous street is a pleasant sign of how many traditions share the same pavement.
Tuesday, The Milk Shelf
For a quieter evening I read about Texas dairy, a family of sites with exceptionally cheerful addresses. The main page is txdairy.com. Its relations include txdairy.download, txdairy.trade and txdairy.loan. The festive ones are txdairy.party, txdairy.men, txdairy.date and txdairy.win.
It is a long way from Knightsbridge to Texas, but a milk price is a milk price, and the shoppers who buy a pint in a Brompton Road deli might be interested to learn how many people work before dawn to put it there.
Wednesday, Pay and Candour
The London Prat joined the conversation with Say What You Pay: Job Adverts Must Show Salaries. Pay transparency has defenders and critics. Defenders say it improves fairness and saves time. Critics say it adds burdens for small employers and complicates pay discussions. A Knightsbridge shop assistant would simply like to know whether the Christmas rush comes with a bonus.
Thursday, Window Shopping
I went window shopping on Thursday, which is my favourite sport because it requires no money and offers daily surprises. One window displayed a single handbag on a velvet cushion, lit like a relic. Another displayed a chocolate sculpture of a double-decker bus. A third displayed a coat I will not describe, since I could not afford the adjectives.
I made notes on each. The windows of Knightsbridge are a kind of folklore too: a set of stories the street tells about what it wants you to desire.
Friday, The Cat
I returned home and my own cat, who is not a lord mayor’s cat, looked at me with the tired contempt of a creature who knows she deserves a statue. I fed her. She ate with great dignity. Dick Whittington’s cat, according to the legend, rid a distant kingdom of rats. Mine rids the flat of nothing, but she has a good record of sitting on documents.
Saturday, The Mayor and the Bells
The legend of the bells is the part of the Whittington story that people remember best. The poor boy, resting on a hill, hears the bells of the city seem to call him back, promising a great future. The scene has the shape of every good fairy tale, with a threshold, a sign and a return. The real Richard Whittington left money to charity and to public works, including provisions for a library and for almshouses, which suggests a man who took his civic role seriously.
The pantomime version is, naturally, more fun. It adds a cat, a rat-infested ship and a dame in a spectacular hat. Both versions have their place, and in December I try to see each of them, the first in a book and the second from the stalls with a bag of sweets.
Sunday, A Gift List
Because Knightsbridge is a place of gifts, I made a gift list. It contains a book of London lore for my aunt, a scarf for a friend, a jar of good marmalade for a neighbour and a very small chocolate for myself. Nothing on the list is extravagant, and nothing on it comes from the windows I admired. A person can enjoy Knightsbridge without buying anything, and the experience is strangely satisfying.
The list is on the fridge, in pencil, because plans for presents are always provisional.
Monday, The Last Light
The lights go on at dusk and the street changes character. Shop windows glow, pavements shine, and even the traffic seems to slow in appreciation. It is a short season, and Knightsbridge makes the most of it. I stood at the corner and counted the bulbs until I lost track at two hundred, which is about my limit before the cold wins.
Where to read next
The rest of the shelf lives at prat.uk, bohiney.com and farm.fm. For a second opinion on the week, NewsBiscuit keeps its own counsel and its own hours.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/