Shopping in Glasgow

"Spiritual people" will tell you that we modern heathens will use all sorts of doomed, wasteful, shallow strategies to try and distract ourselves from the empty void that is our lives.

Today I got to enjoy all of them! A tasty pastry for breakfast, a perv on the hot guys of Glasgow, buying luxury goods, drinking alcohol. And let me tell you friends, when it comes to the void that is my life, I say "Yes but look at this perfume I bought!"

The day started before dawn. I went for a walk along the banks of the River Clyde while Stu paid off a bit of sleep debt. The river has an invincible prettiness that even Glasgow's worst ugliness could not diminish. And believe me, Glasgow was trying hard. Litter, fluids, graffiti, concrete, dirt, steel... I saw two gulls fighting over a rat corpse. (I took a photo, but I am a merciful correspondent and will not publish it).

The sight of Stuart afterwards was eye bleach. We decided to go for a little shop, and went to Buchanan Galleries to look at John Lewis and see what all the fuss was about. It was a whole lot of fuss about nothing - the shop was kind of crap. We wanted to buy some aftershave and couldn't catch the eye of the staff. They probably would have been oleaginous and alienating anyway.

A quick trip to Arran: Sense of Scotland to try some local fragrances, then to a perfume shop to get Stuart a new aftershave. (We settled on Dior Sauvage, a clean scent with a lot of pepper in it that is very popular). Some chocolates from Hotel Chocolat - my life was feeling SO meaningful by this point - and then a trip to Penhaligons, the Royal Perfumier, to get a bottle of Lothair from a sales assistant who looked like Richard Madden. It was just a wonderful shopping day.

The rest of the day we plugged up the void with lager, chips, and a white chocolate raspberry cheesecake covered in rose petals overlooking Grand Central Station. If you like pleasure, Glasgow has pleasures aplenty.

I don't know why, but I had this racist idea that Glasgow would be somehow rude or brusque or hostile or something. This has been contradicted at every turn. The manners and thoughtfulness in Glasgow have been exemplary. We have observed more courtesy here, not just by service staff but by pedestrians, beggars, commuters, students... over and above the courtesy we are used to seeing at home. I thought maybe I was imagining it, wrapped in a tourist cocoon or something, but it's inescapable: Glasgow has a genteel quality that belies its scruffiness.

We go to Inverness tomorrow. I'm an absolute wreck. Maybe I should have taken the spiritual path after all. I'll think about that while I eat another ten chocolates.Read more