Pale Green Ghosts

As it is Sunday we went to worship at a shopping cathedral called Bluewater. Mrs. Emigre had to buy a birthday present for a friend and after some consideration settled upon an English China gift set.Though designed in L'Angleterre the gift set was made in Taiwan.

I spent my time watching fellow worshippers pass by with bags festooned with brands. Bluewater is suited to people watching as it is designed in the round. You follow the concourse with Marks to the left and Zara to the right. Keep going and you will end up were you started.

I succumbed to idolatry and got a camera connection kit to transfer photos from camera to computer. The expansively presented bit of plastic was designed in California and ....anyone ..made in China. It cost maybe £1 to manufacture and cost the writer £25. A fool and his money .

Modern retail is like the movie the Wizard of Oz .The Wizard is advertisers with expensively cultivated brands. Working away behind the curtain are low paid employees in factories with dormitories and canteens. These vast factories have suicide nets in case the employees get despondent.

Before I left the gleaming spires I got a CD called Pale Green Ghosts. It is a critically acclaimed tale of heartbreak and loss. Though affecting and heartfelt it suffers from the same solipsism that affects a lot of art.

I haven't listened to it enough to figure out the Pale Green Ghosts that haunt the singer . I do know that Bluewater and shopping centres like it have ghosts. And we are not frightened by them.