Let's take a stroll down Oxford Street (Oxford Street (W1))

Member Name: hellyphant

Product:	Oxford Street (W1)
Date:	20/03/02 (3362 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a shopoholics paradise, you'll be entertained all day long, HUGE choice of clothes shops

Disadvantages: noisy, polluted, crowds of tourists

Have you ever found yourself hypnotically drawn to the bright lights of the West End? A shoppers paradise - endless streams of clothes shops, music shops, book shops, more clothes shops...and...well, the odd sex shop scattered here and there. What more could you want?

I will always be envious of those people who head to the West End with a purpose, who march into the right shops at the right times and return home late in the evening laden with bag upon bag of goodies. I normally return frustrated and depressed, either empty handed or, like the last time I went, clutching a minging green beaded necklace that I knew perfectly well would be tossed under the bed as soon as I got home.

Of course, there have been the occasional times when I've had a successful shop. A few months ago, I miraculously managed to find 2 pairs of trousers, a skirt, AND a top, and all in one outing. I was quite proud of myself. Although it took me a few days to fully recover from my ordeal.

OK, so how do you get to the West End?

Obviously this depends on where you live and what mode of transport you use. I'm sure most sensible people would NEVER be so stupid as to drive to the West End, unless they take a perverse pleasure in being stuck in their car all day long, honking their horns in frustration and swearing at other drivers, pedestrians, cyclists, random pigeons...

And be warned, if you absolutely HAVE to bring your car along, endless queues of traffic and random pigeons won?t be all you have to worry about. Don't be surprised if you have to fork out a fortune on parking fees, and find you have a strict time limit to adhere to. Parking inspectors aren't particularly lenient in the West End. So if you're stuck in Anne Summers, trying on a fiddly pair of suspenders, and cars and parking fines slip right out of your mind, you may well return to find a nice big clamp on your wheels and a friendly little note on your windsc
reen demanding payment for your sins.

The bus is a fairly good choice to opt for. It's a lot cheaper than the tube for a start. The most you'll ever have to pay is £1.00, whereas on the tube, even if you're only travelling from one stop to the next, you'll have to fork out a ridiculous £1.60. However, the bus is obviously going to face the same traffic congestion as the car and it can take literally HOURS to crawl a very short distance. For information on bus and tube services, visit the London Transport website (www.londontransport.co.uk), or give them a call on 020 7222 1234. I hope you like Vivaldi's Four Seasons, because that's what you?ll be listening to while you're on hold. And let me know if you manage to get through to someone in less than 20 minutes. I've yet to manage it.

The tube is without a doubt the fastest and simplest mode of transport into the West End. If you're only visiting and don't know the area very well, I would advise you to pick up a tube map from any underground station. It saves you desperately searching for wall maps, only to find a huge crowd of tourists with the same idea, already huddled round the one and only map and totally blocking your view. Can you tell I find this annoying?

If you're heading to Oxford Street, you have a choice of four stops to get out at, Tottenham Court Road, Oxford Circus, Bond Street or Marble Arch.

The Tottenham Court Road stop is best if you're intending to explore the whole of Oxford Street from one end to the other, as it is situated at what I like to call 'the starting point'.

The Oxford Circus stop on the other hand, is right bang in the middle of Oxford Street and the stop I personally prefer, as I know the shops I like are nearby, i.e. Top Shop, Miss Selfridges, H&Ms etc.

Bond Street is the posh stop. If you're hoping to bump into a top celeb, you're most likely to if you get off
here and take a slow meander down Bond Street, home to some of the world's top fashion designers. You?ve probably seen the pictures of Posh 'n' Becks doing their weekly Gucci shop down Bond Street. I've personally yet to bump into them, but if you camp outside one of the shops for long enough, you might well be lucky.

Marble Arch is the last stop on Oxford Street, where the shops are slightly more spread out and the crowds seem to be less overbearing. Just over the road from Marble Arch, you will find Hyde Park, so a great place to get out at if you're stopping for a picnic break.

All the stations on Oxford Street are always incredibly busy, especially Oxford Circus You will find when you finally reach daylight, that the tube station is positioned on a junction between Oxford Street and Regents Street, hence the endless streams of cars bumper to bumper and swarms of noisy smelly smoky people trying to cross roads and turn corners. It can be quite scary if you're small like me and all you can see are feet and legs. You tend to get trodden on quite a lot too, and pushed and shoved and poked. Be prepared.

OK, so you've successfully arrived at your destination, a little battered and bruised but that's what you learn to expect from a visit to Oxford Street. Now, you're probably carrying a small bag where you keep your money, mobile, and if you're a girl - hairbrush, compact, lip balm, mirror etc etc. A few words of advice. Firstly, choose your bag carefully. Regrettably, Oxford Street is a thieves' paradise. Crowds make it very easy for a thief to delve into the pocket of a rucksack and remove a purse or wallet with no one batting an eyelid. So don't use a bag that you can't see, like a rucksack, unless you want to buy locks for all your zips (which is going a bit far, I think). I normally take a small shoulder bag, which I wear over my head, i.e. not just over one shoulder, and I hold on
to it for dear life. I'm naturally a very suspicious and cautious person and I don't trust anyone. Sometimes, especially in environments such as this, I don't think it's such a bad thing.

When packing your bag, remember to squeeze a bottle of water in. All that walking and shopping makes you very thirsty, and you will be SO grateful when you look at both the price of drinks in the West End and the endless queues to actually get to one.

With regards to money, I should point out that there aren't that many banks on Oxford Street. Remember that Oxford Street is a VERY long road, and when the crowds are swarming and you're moving slower than snail pace, it literally seems to stretch into eternity. I bank with the Abbey National, and before I got my credit card, back in the dark ages, I used to trek for what seemed like miles to get my money. Quite often by the time I'd finally reached the bank, I'd had enough and couldn?t be bothered to trek all the way back to where I'd come from. I suppose that might explain why I came home empty handed so often...

If you don't have a credit card, or don't trust yourself using one, I would definitely advise you to sort your money out before you get to Oxford Street. Even if you do find a bank nearby, there's usually a huddle of homeless people gathered round the cash points, making you feel a) very guilty and b) quite scared. I personally find it incredibly difficult standing right next to a homeless person when I'm taking my notes from the dispenser and they're begging me to give them something. You should also bear in mind however, that there are a lot of professional beggars in the West End, who make an absolute fortune sitting in shop doorways all day long, assuming the identity of a homeless person. In fact, a couple of years ago, the police launched an investigation into this and it was discovered that the average professional beggar can easily m
ake a £100 a day, more than most hard working people make a day doing a proper job.

My next piece of advice may seem obvious, but please, for your own sake, (and for the people whose feet you may be breaking actually), do NOT go shopping in Oxford Street wearing stilettos. The number of girls/women who dress up to the nines for a day of shopping in the West End, in the hope they'll bump into a fit young man...well, bump you may well do, in the midst of a crowd, but it's fairly unlikely that anyone will be able to see or appreciate what you're wearing. Oxford Street is like a battlefield and the people are complete vultures. They push and shove, they want to shop, and they want to shop now. Believe me when I tell you that nobody is going to notice your stilettos, and your tight little mini skirt? - well, that's just going to be totally lost in the crowd. A day of strenuous shopping on the battlefields of Oxford Street requires nothing more than pure comfort clothing. If you decide on a mini skirt and stilettos, after an hour, you'll be screaming in agony and ready to go home. So wear your trainers, wear your jeans. No one cares. Honestly.

I'd also advise you to wear layered clothing. The shops in Oxford Street are VERY hot, and even in the middle of winter you'll feel like stripping off, believe me.

Ok, so before we hit the shops, we ARE getting there, be patient, I have one last piece of essential advice. Purchase a large automatic umbrella, you know, the kind where you press a button and the umbrella suddenly shoots out, becoming longer. (ok...that sounds a bit rude. Unintentional, honest!). Always always always take this umbrella to the West End with you. I don't know what I'd do without mine. It has so many uses; pushing crowds apart, attacking potential muggers or thieves, and when you're weary at the end of the long long day, it even has its use as a walking stick. The umbrella: a truly wonde
rful invention.

All set to face those shops? Good good. Firstly, what kind of shops should you expect to find on Oxford Street. Well, if you love clothes, then Oxford Street will be your ultimate clothing heaven. Almost every clothes shop I've ever heard of can be found on Oxford Street: Top Shop, Miss Selfridge, Oasis, Kaooki, Morgan, Jeffrey Rodgers...I could go on, but you'll probably get bored reading such a long list. You can also find very cheap clothes shops that look extremely tacky from the outside, pretty dodgy from the inside, and normally have S Club 7 booming from their stereos. But if you're a sucker for a bargain, I'd advise you to take a look - if you can face the smell that is. I've picked up some very nice clothes from these so called tacky shops, for example a fitted zip up fleece top for a fiver - now I'd call that a bargain - and I'm still wearing it 2 years down the line as well.

I have to recommend Top Shop to everyone, not for the clothes because to be honest it's a long time since I managed to find anything I actually like in there, but it's great just for the experience. Oxford Streets Top Shop is HUGE. It has 4 floors; Top Man on the top floor, jewellery, bags, sweets and every other nit bit in between on ground level zero (as they call it), general clothing on one below zero, and then finally, in the basement, two below zero, you will find retro clothing, the Top Shop café and a row of professional manicurists and nail painters eager to transform your nails into works of art.

Towards the Marble Arch end of Oxford Street, you have your department stores, Selfridges, Debenhams and House of Fraiser. And then there's good old BHS and M&S, dull and ordinary, but stocker of comfy bras and sensible pants - so not all bad, and of course there's the M&S food - pricey but classy and a step up from your local Tescos.

If it's books you're looking for, your bes
t bet is to head towards Charring Cross Road, where you'll find a plethora of wonderful second hand bookshops. Borders and Waterstones can be found on Oxford Street and are a great escape for a few minutes of quiet away from the crowds. No one shouts at you if you feel like sitting on the floor and reading an entire novel. It's not like being in a newsagents and feeling the shopkeeper's evil eye on you as you quickly skim through the pages of Heat.

HMV and Virgin Megastore are huge buildings, impossible to miss, that stock thousands upon thousands of CDs, DVDs, videos, and computer games. You virtually bump into Virgin Megastore as you come out of the Tottenham Court Road tube station, and if you're ever passing, wave hello to my boyfriend - he works there! He'll be the scruffy one, sprawled over one of the counters doing very little work. But Virgin Megastore?s great, honest. Don't be a traitor and shop at HMV.

You may well be feeling a tad peckish after a few solid hours of shopping, so where should you go for some decent nosh?...Well, this is one of Oxford Streets greatest failings, in my opinion, because the only food you're going to find are fast food outlets - Macdonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and the odd Steak House. Nothing much to get excited about, I know. But then Oxford Street isn't about eating, it's about shopping. If you want to eat something decent, I would suggest trying Soho or Covent Garden.

I know there are a lot of people who hate Oxford Street. There's no denying that it's very noisy, very dirty and incredibly claustrophobic. However, once you've been there a few times and learnt from your mistakes, shopping there does get easier and more enjoyable. For example, if you love shopping but hate crowds, there is a way round it. Get to Oxford Street before the crowds. Generally, I find a good time to go is a Saturday or a Sunday morning around 10.30am, when the shops ha
ve just opened and most people are still snoring in their beds. I've done this a few times, and it's great. It makes you realise that Oxford Street really isn't that long at all and that it's quite possible to walk from one end to the other in under 20 minutes. You also realise that certain shops seem to continually reappear as you walk further down the road. There's about 4 MacDonalds on Oxford Street, and at least 2 of every other shop. Great if you're lazy, like me.

The Oxford Street experience is something I think everyone should try just once. Either the manic Saturday afternoon vulture shop, or the eerie stroll down the middle of the empty road at 3 in the morning, whatever suits you best.

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