A poor show

I like bookshops and, in general, I like pop-up shops. The logic would follow that a pop-up bookshop should be a place to cut a path towards. Was on the King's Road early this morning therefore, eager to look at the Phaidon pop-up that's just opened and will probably trade until after Christmas.

A yellow sign in the window informed passersby that there was "20% off all books". Maybe so, but aren't there offers of this kind in almost every bookshop in the land? And bearing in mind that this is a pop-up store, you might feel entitled to rather more.

But what really grated was the store itself. Everybody knows that pop-ups have a limited lifespan, but there is no excuse for adopting a lowest common denominator position. This is, quick simply, the dullest shop on the King's Road and that is saying a lot. A white box, with white fixturing. Phaidon books are pretty, but not pretty enough to offset this.

And as if this were not enough, there's a concerted PR campaign to get it written about.

Well...at least that bit's worked...

Spreading across the West End

The temptation to write something about loving or hating ran deep this afternoon. I was at the Piccadilly end of Regent Street in seach of the Marmite pop-up store and in truth, I loved it. Two floors of nostalgia in celebration of a yeast-based spread wouldn't be the first thing that you might think of when deciding how to use an empty store unit.

And yet here it is, a store devoted to the breakfast and teatime condiment, complete with a pyramid of Marmite jars and a turntable on which jars of the black stuff rotate endlessly. Its product, ranging from toaters and tea towels, to branded bread bins and, of course, Marmite jars, is on the ground floor, while upstairs, there's a 50s-style tearoom where you can enjoy Marmite fingers with a cup of tea.

Only open till Christmas, this store, at 82 Regent Street, is worth a visit if only to admire the multi-coloured Union Jack at the back of the ground floor (with Marmite at its centre, natch), created by Royal College of Art graduates.

Go now

Proletarian small beer

This is not any kind of visit to a new store, but a visit to a bar. I was in Poland a couple of nights ago in a city called Posnan. Nice old centre, lots of brand new shopping centres - you know the sort of thing - and a Polish Communist Party nostalgia haven called "Bar Proletaryat." Pickled herrings and gherkins, brown beer and Marx - it's all there. The place is filled with Soviet era flotsam and jetsam and absolutely demands a visit when you're in town.

And surely the ultimate irony is that this is an enterprise celebrating control by the people which is only available to those who can afford it and which is, presumably, run by a well-to-do capitalist somewhere.

In true communist style, they stopped me taking a pic, so I'm posting an image of a decent-enough looking building in the centre of the city.

Deck the halls

If there's one thing that's almost as predictable as retailers rolling out the Christmas cheer, usually in the shape of a few lights and some streamers, it has to be the article detailing their efforts. And yet, there is always something curiously uplifting if you happen to wander through London's West End at this time of year, as long as it's post 4.30pm, because the only time to do this is after dark.

Cycling at speed down Regent Street is actually not a bad way to assess the displays on offer. If anything catches your eye as you try to avoid death by number 12 bus or motorcyle courier in a hurry to make the next drop, then it must be pretty good. On which reckoning, Habitat and the National Geographic store merited a quick pull on the brakes. Zara, Austin Reed and Nokia, among many others, did not.

The same exercise conducted on Oxford Street the previous night revealed only one highlight - Selfridges, where a somewhat camp intepretation of various fairy tales was eyebrow raising. It was the same story in Piccadilly, where Fortnum & Mason put on its usual display of baroque festive magnificence, including a reference to the Michael Clark interpretation of Swan Lake with male tu-tu clad dancers.

And finally, at the top end of Ken High Street, it was hard not stifle a yawn at the endless Warholesque repetition of the Wholefoods Markets windows - quite simply the dullest Yuletide iteration in town.

What was remarkable was how relatively few retailers were decking the halls. Many seemed not to have bothered at all. We may still be in recession, but this is definitely disappointing.

Went to Cardiff yesterday. Stepping off the train, for whatever reason, I was back 20-something years to my student days. Much has changed and there is no more obvious signal of the Welsh capital's renaissance, if you want to call it that, than the massive St David's 2 shopping centre, just opened, albeit a fair proportion of it remains tenantless.

Actually I was there to meet the men from Cult, the retail arm of Superdry and never let it be said that the high street is moribund. This store, open about four weeks now, is around 14,000 sq ft, making it large for a fashion store and if you want to take a look at a retailer that rings the material and design changes wherever you happen to look, this is as good an example as is out there currently.

What was the main shopping drag, Queen's Street, looked pretty much as I remembered it - very wet and busy, although at least most of the units were filled. The ghost of a girlfriend past walked towards me and then passed by - wonder what she's up to now... or where she is, come to that.