OXFORD STREET


LUV - Obviously I don’t love Oxford Street. Not being a German tourist or one of those poor bastards who swapped out a law career in their native Creblakistanibos for holding a GOLFF SAIL sign in all weather, I avoid Oxford Street whenever possible.

But you know what not liking Oxford Street makes me? A Londoner.

And I LUV that.

When I first moved to the Big Smoke from the Shire, I thought Oxford Street was Where the Clothes Shops lived. So, every time I needed a new pair of Onitsuka trainers or cargo pants, or a new record bag with a robot cat on it (apparently I was a Manga character when I first moved to London), I’d “sorry” and “excuse me” all the way up Oxford Street (but not too far - in case I, you know, ended up in Oxford) to complete my purchases.

I’d use Oxford Street as a springboard to every main bit of Soho because I thought the devil I knew was better than the pimp-lined backstreets I didn’t. I’d stop for a mid-shop drink in a pub off Oxford Street then get surprised when my robot cat record bag was stolen. Finally, sweaty and flustered, I’d collapse in Starbucks and wonder how Londoners had the stamina for this.

Now I know better.

These days I shop in Covent Garden, Camden Passage, Marylebone High Street or, fuck it, online. I only ever use the Argyll Street exit at Oxford Circus and carry a map of Soho in my brain. If I have to go shopping on Oxford Street (because sometimes every woman needs to get lost in a Top Shop so large she’s forgotten why she went in in the first place, but ohmygod SHOES), I do the civilised thing and go at 9am on a Tuesday when it’s crowd-free.

And if it gets crowded I just push my way through the ambling throng with the phlegmatic reluctance that comes with being a true LDNR.

Now get the fuck out of my way, slow ass. I’m walkin’ here.
- Robyn Wilder



HAT - For over 600 years, prisoners were escorted along Oxford Street on their way to the Tyburn gallows, where they would be summarily executed. In a way this makes a lot of sense, because nothing can really prepare a person for the blissful release of death like spending a few minutes on Oxford Street.


To be fair, I’ve got nothing against the street itself. It’s long, it’s wide, it’s flat. It does what it’s supposed to. I don’t hate streets. That would be mental.


No, it’s people that I hate. It’s just that there’s quite a lot of them on Oxford Street.

And they’re there needlessly, too. Nobody ever actually goes shopping on Oxford Street. They might think they’re going to go shopping on Oxford Street, but that never actually happens. What happens is they get off the tube at Oxford Circus, stand in front of about 50 morons who can’t work the ticket machine properly, get disorientated by the 600 different arseholes trying to shove fliers into their face at the top of the exit and then get immediately swept up by the slow-moving avalanche of tourists and out-of-towners and students and old people who are quite happy to spend their lives ambiently drifting up and down Europe’s busiest shopping road with no real purpose.


I’d call it walking, but it isn’t. You don’t walk down Oxford Street so much as reenact the ending of The Shawshank Redemption, but with human beings playing the part of the tunnel full of shitty water.


And then, AND THEN, if you actually get into a shop you’ll realise that Oxford Street is basically identical to every other High Street in the entire country. There’s a Boots, there’s a Topshop and there’s an H&M. They all sell the same stuff, they all play the same godawful music and you’ll still be served by an indifferent Saturday girl who doesn’t get paid nearly enough to have to put up with your whining crap. It’s the same. You could have just stayed at home. You could have bought everything online like a civilised person would. But, no, you had to go to Oxford Street, didn’t you. You fucking dipstick. It’s your fault. I hate people like you. I hate you.
- Stuart Heritage