Bertie Goes Shopping

Last Saturday Bertie and I got off the tube at Green Park. If he is asleep he wakes up to the command “Beagles alight”.

We walked round the Green Park before heading east along Curzon Street. Heywood Hill is closed at weekends but our destination was Geo. F Trumper’s where Bertie was welcomed as a first timer. Don’t be stupid, Sadiq was cutting my hair not Bertie’s.

Then we walked across Hyde Park via the Holocaust Memorial Garden and down Sloane Street to Peter Jones. Sloane Street is a mess. The mess is otherwise known as The Sloane Street Improvement Scheme. What’s that? It usually means making something worse, like the Hammersmith Bridge Improvement Scheme.

“The Sloane Street Improvement Scheme will create an elegant and welcoming environment for pedestrians, without compromising the street’s character or having a negative effect on traffic flows.

The improvements will include:

• resurfacing and widening pavements using high quality traditional materials
• introducing over one hundred new trees along with elegant, ornamental planters to provide a buffer between pedestrians and traffic
• installing traffic calming measures and increasing crossing points to reduce high traffic speeds
• installing consistent street furniture and lighting to enhance the character and appearance of the street
• removing unsightly street clutter
• providing residents and businesses with better connectivity through upgraded broadband connection

For once, well done the local borough, Kensington and Chelsea, and I hope Lord Cadogan approves unless he is paying. But I have digressed. There have been two significant improvements at PJ. First dogs are allowed and secondly there are expert staff on hand to advise on everything from Nespresso machines to DAB radios and mobile ‘phones. I bought the last two on Saturday.

If you thoroughly dislike and are apprehensive of change, as many of us in our seventies are, listen up, as they say. My iPhone 8, launched in 2017, no longer receives Apple software updates (Apple stops this after six years). This is why shareholders in Apple are doing very nicely, thank you. I would have spent some £800 on a newer model but the salesman assessed my need and told me if I wanted a ‘phone just like the 8 I should get a third generation iPhone SE, released in 2022. I did and it cost £379.

It was a gratifyingly expensive morning and for a fashionable beagle about town a four hour outing in some of the grander London purlieus. Where shall we go next?

The cinema at Whiteley’s used to have food served at one’s seat. It was disconcertingly like flyng Business Class and the end of the film was always ruined by the water/waitress blocking the screen while I paid. I’m unsure if Bertie would enjoy an afternoon at the cinema with snacks. I am sure that if he hears “Bertie”on the soundtrack he will bark. This happens when Penelope Keith imperiously summons her beagle in To the Manor Born.