Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hi 安澜.

Hi, lulu, hi everyone.

So What are we gonna talk about today?

Today I thought I would choose a topic that you would be interested in.

What is that.

Shopping in London.

How dare you, are you gender stereotype me? You think because I'm a girl so I love shopping?

No, I think you love shopping because I've seen the amount of random rubbish you buy on Taobao.

Touche, fair enough. Ok, let's talk about shopping in London. 我们来说说伦敦购物. Exciting topic, there's so many places to shop in London.

Absolutely. And Today we're going to be talking about some of the unique shops in London. But first of all, I think it's important that we get the areas right.

So the first area we're gonna talk about is Oxford street and Regent street.

Oxford street就是牛津街. Regent street是摄政街. Regent street I'm quite familiar with. Oxford street honestly, I obviously know I've been there, but I don't usually go shopping there.

No. Oxford street is the busiest street in Europe and it was the center of the shopping area in London.

Has it always been like a shopping area in history?

No, originally it was the road to the public execution grounds.

Okay, public execution就是公开处死刑的那个地方, 就相当于一个刑场了. That was the road to the public execution grounds.

Absolutely.

Back in the days people went there to just watch it almost like a show.

And I think basically what happened was then a lot of shops started to open up along the way because public executions always draw a crowd.

Yeah, like I said it's almost like a performance. So these shops opened started selling snacks I guess while people are waiting between the executions.

And then they started selling clothes and the rest is history.

It's a bit morbid. Yeah, I wouldn't go to any secondhand clothes shop on Oxford street then.

Well, you won't find any secondhand.

No, that's right.

Because the whole secondhand就像什么二手店那种古着店都是在另外一个地方一个区域. Oxford street, it's filled with like big brands and also fast fashion that sort of thing .

Pretty much. So I would say that most of the high street brands they have their main shop on Oxford street.

Hang on a minute, 安澜, you said high street brand就是高街品牌 when English people hear high street brands that doesn't mean luxury brands that means fast fashion brands like H&M, Zara this kind of things right？

Pretty much, so high street brands are clothes shops or any brands that you find in almost any town, any city in the UK on the high street.

现在中文里有的时候你看时尚杂志, 你也会听到直译, 它就叫高街品牌High street. All right, so tell us about some of the, I guess, the big shops.

WELL . I'm not gonna talk about one of the shops and that is Selfridges.

Selfridges, would you laugh at me if I tell you that I've been to London so many times and lived in London but never been to Selfridges.

To be honest, I've only been to Selfridges to use the toilet. I've never actually bought anything in Selfridges

Yet, we are talking about Selfridges here.

But that was part of the original idea. So it was founded by an American Harry Selfridge in 1909.

So the name.

Yes. And it was one of the first department stores in London. And I say the only time I went to Selfridge was to go to the toilet. That is because Harry Selfridge had the idea to make shopping a leisure activity. He wanted to encourage people to come into the shop and to spend time there.

And I doubt Selfridge, Harry Selfridge had in mind that... you know what we're gonna open a shop so people can come in and just take advantage of our facilities, like the loo.

But a lot of people that do that they end up buying things along the way. He was the first person to coin a phrase “The customer is always right”.

所谓的顾客永远都是对的, 就顾客是上帝, 这个感觉the customer is always right.

Because you have to think that before then, shops were places for you just to go in, buy what you need and leave .

Very functional.

Very very functional, and a lot of the shops they wouldn't even show on display their goods. You will just go and say I want some shoes and then someone will show you a pair of shoes if you want to buy them, you buy them; if you don't, you don’t.

Yeah, I think it's the same in China. It's not till much later these shopping malls they become a place where people can hang out in. Exactly, and enjoy rather than just go in and get whatever they need.

Exactly. And the thing that I really like about Selfridges as well is there's so much that we think of as a typical department store, which was invented in Selfridges like the idea of perfume on the ground floor.

就是那种shopping mall的一层, 通常都是香水柜台.

Yeah.

I always thought that was just because it smells nice once you come in immediately, you smell the fragrance.

Partly yes, it's one because perfume is normally the most profitable product.

I see.

Two, it smells nice; and Three, it originally was on the ground floor to stop the smell of the horses coming into the shop. This was 1909.

对, 那个时候还有马车, 所以马就停在外面, 都是马的便便味, the perfume was to hide that. Exactly. I see, clever.

1909 not many cars on the street, mostly horses.

Yeah, I think there was like a TV show in the UK about this whole story about Selfridge.

Yeah. There was a TV show dedicated to him because his story was so interesting because he started off as very rich, but then he became a pauper, then he became really, really poor. He made some bad decisions. He lost almost all of his money

Because he opened up salvages?

No,no, basically his wife died and he went into this really dark spiral.

I see. So that was much much later.

Much, much later.

And it's actually quite sad that eventually they kicked Harry Selfridge out of the store, so they kept the name, but they removed him. And He used to go back to his store and sometimes he was just told to go away because they thought he was a beggar.

That's so sad.

It's a very very sad story. But if you're interested, certainly watch the TV show. It's very interesting.

It's like whilst other stories about rags to riches就所谓的rags to riches 就是from poor to rich, 这就是属于白手起家.

But his story was literally from riches to rags, exactly就属于家道中落那种.

That was such a heartbreaking story of going into a depression because you lost your partner and then they kept your name. Yet, you are not even allowed in this department store you once own and founded and opened.

Yeah, it's a really sad story and if you're interested I would say watch the TV show.

I definitely would check it out after today's talk.

Let's go away from Selfridges now and we'll go down Regent street to a store that I know that you would love, Hamleys.

Hamleys我们的翻译叫哈姆雷斯. Hamleys is a toy shop.

It's the oldest toy shop in the world. And the Hamley is on Regent street, essentially is the first one. It was the original one.

I've been in the Hamleys in London, I've been into the Hamleys in some other European countries. I've also been in the one in Wuhan.

Oh really?

Yes, they have like the best claw machine, I got over 10 toys there, 就是我过年回武汉的时候哈姆雷斯武汉也有一家, 然后里面的claw machine就是娃娃机, 特别好抓, 我从来没有在任何别的一家有那么好的运气. I got over 10.

I remember going into Hamleys when I was a little kid. And the great thing about Hamleys is that you can actually try out some of the toys as well. They got loads of interactive displays as well. So it's not just look at the boxes, you can actually play with the toys as well.

That was the oldest toy shop in the world. I bet it has been very innovative like with all these interactions, putting toys on display, so that allowed children to engage more .

Exactly. And in the store in London, there's over 450,000 toys on sale. Wow. It's a huge shop.

I remember it's a few stories. right？

In the Regent street branch, I think that's a bit too big but in other branches, the company even offers sleep overs for children to spend the night in a toy shop.

Wow, sleep over可以在那儿晚上过夜, 带个睡袋那种. Do they offer it to overgrown children? 大龄儿童也可以去吗？

Maybe, I know it's expensive, but can you imagine that kind of, I know, a night in a toy shop?

What if this the Toy Story situation, they all come to life.

That's a little bit scary, but I've heard some people that did it and they said it's absolutely amazing.

Yeah I would love that. So that's Hamleys. I would love to do that. By the way, I need to check it out.