The High Street

Every town has at least one! If you've ever been to England then you know what one is, that one street in town lined with stores and crowded with shoppers (often pedestrianized!). What's also relatively well known is that 95% of all England high streets are exactly the same. Yes, that's a bit of a bold statement, but it's 100% true (I think I'm going to roll with this percentage thing, I dig it). London is big and therefore has numerous high streets, sometimes named for the neighborhood, like Kensington High Street or Fulham Road. However, the high street isn't always called the high street! In Southampton, the High Street was a bit derelict and sketchy, and the acting high street was Above Bar Street (to this day I still do not know where this bar is that the street is above, my best guess is that it is immediatly north of the Bargate) and in Chelsea it's Kings Road.

The sameness of the high streets is for the most part a bit depressing. What's the point in going to visit other towns if you inevitably end up trying to use up some time by shopping when it's exactly the same stores as in your own neighborhood. Going, 'ooh, they put the slouchy sweater display in the front of the store, by my house it's in the middle!' really only has so much appeal. I think I might make a game called high street bingo to spice these trips up a bit. These are the stores that would make the board:

Center of the board (as it's a given): WH Smith, who claim to be a stationary/book store but really aren't. It's where you buy magazines and bottles of water for the train journey home.

First column: H&M, Marks and Spencer (Simply Food or all inclusive), BHS (British Home Stores, not Brian Hemphill'S), Office (they sell shoes), Next (they sell clothes I don'tlike).

Second column: Superdrug, Monsoon, Zavvi (used to be Virgin Music), Debenhams (Deb-in-ims), Schuh (yes, they also sell shoes).

Rest of third column: TopShop, Aldo, Claire's (they're everywhere, even saw one in Switzerland), Burger King.

Fourth column: Boots, Zara, Pret a Manger, Caffe Nero, Thorntons (the fancy chocolate store, Southampton had two within about 100 yards of each other).

Fifth column: McDonald's, Subway, River Island (they sell clothes to 18 year old girl types), Wyman the Stationer (where you actually buy stationary and office supplies), Starbucks (no use in fighting it, it seems).

Hono(u)rable mention: West Cornwall Pasty Company (more likely in old-fashioned cute towns), Borders, John Lewis, Republic (not banana, but also sell clothes), Shoe Express (Payless quality footwear), Oasis (so similar to River Island in my mind they might as well be the same thing), Benetton, Fat Face (clothes that Mark likes but are overpriced), Kew (clothes for the slightly flowy crowd), Hobbs (clothes for the less flowy working mom type), Karen Miller (cute clothes you can't afford!).

And I'm sure there are many more that have just slipped my mind!