Approved shopping only
Simon Heifer looks for Christmas presents online; and takes a stroll round Piccadilly There are several reasons why Christmas should be held every two, or possibly even five, years, but none is quite so pressing as the hell of shopping. It is at around this time of the season that the thoughts of some of us turn to little else. We know, or think we know, the horror of witnessing disappointment among our loved ones when they open their gifts on 25 December. We wish there, instead, to be appointment. So the question then arises of how the average man, burdened by his inevitable loathing of shops (with the exception of proper shops such as those selling secondhand books, shotguns and wine) handles this most treacherous of courses.
In the bad old days before the intemet — which coincided with my having very small children with very fixed ideas of what they wanted from Santa — the search for the perfect toy began sometime towards the end of September. The search consisted of Mrs Heffer locating the toy, and me being sent to buy, pay for and collect it. The misery of this cannot be overstated. First, one would machete one's way through some megastore in the West End at what one thought would be a quiet time, only to find that every other person in England had had the same thought.
Then, having found the particular item (which, being a toy castle, or airport, or some such piece of infrastructure was inevitably vast in dimensions) and parted with a sum of money equivalent to the Albanian national debt, one had to stagger out of the shop, injuring various people on the way, into the arctic cold and get the damned thing home.
Now, those days are gone. Whatever the children want is inevitably locatable online, and somebody else has the grief of getting it to my doorstep. Which only leaves a man's greatest grief of all — buying the perfect present for The Woman Who Has Everything.
Like, I am sure, most wives — I have only the one, so my experience is perforce limited — mine always says that she has plenty of ideas of what she wants, and there is no need for me to fret about having the big idea. To an extent, and in the cause of safety, I do allow myself to be guided by the odd suggestion that may be dropped in the course of the months preceding Christmas. However, no man wants to be thought completely unoriginal or lacking in imagination, even if he is. There is, therefore, nothing for it but to dedicate at the very least a long lunch-hour (I know, I know: but we all have to make sacrifices) and possibly even a whole afternoon to a perambulation of what in our family is known as The Approved Shopping District.
The Approved Shopping District starts halfway down Bond Street towards Piccadilly, does a dog-leg left down the Burlington Arcade, crosses Piccadilly itself via Fortnum's and then terminates along Jermyn Street. It is approved because Mrs Heifer, like, I feel sure, most women, has let it be known that almost any product purchased from almost any shop in this area will give particular pleasure. Sections of the District remain, pending a lottery win or at least the final payment of the school fees, in the realms of the unlikely: the jewellers in Bond Street, fine though their wares are, are clearly aimed at the oil sheikh or City bonus market, and I strongly recommend them to any of you with the good fortune to be in that catchment area. The Burlington Arcade is much more in the realms of the likely. A visit to Mr Pickett's shop always produces something pleasing, be it leather or knitwear, and one year in there I had the entertaining pleasure (so the proprietor informed me) of being served by the moonlighting Head Girl of Tudor Hall, something a man of my age can usually only dream of.
For lotions, potions and smells in general there is the compulsory visit to Penhaligon's; and I always enjoy that shop nearby that sells amusing designs of slippers: perhaps this year I shall at last find those featuring a picture of something looking remarkably like the family dog. In Piccadilly there are calorific goodies at Fortnum's, books at Waterstone's, and all manner of clothes at the high-class chemiseries of Jermyn Street. By the end of the walk the bag is normally full and the wallet empty which is, I think, what nature intended: and the hell is over for another year.
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