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.

Germany, it's not all dull - really

There is an unfortunate tendency to group German cities into a homogenous whole that is wholly unwarranted. Having just returned from a Berlin jaunt followed by a Frankfurt foray the case could hardly be clearer. On the one hand there's Berlin, centre of Teutonic counter-culture, with its seemingly endless supply of retail novelty and innovation. And then there's Frankfurt the mittel-Europ home of bland.

Bankers may like it, but it's got almost nothing for the visitor other than, perhaps, a startlingly large (and vulgar) sculpture of the Euro in a very unsettling yellow - slap-bang in the centre of the city. In fact, even those living in the city will admit, in their weaker moments, that this is the epicentre of boredom. There's the Kaufhof, tick. There's the H&M, tick. And oh yes, there's the boarded-up Hollister waiting to open. Excuse me while I head off for an overpriced coffee and cake - little reason to do much else.

Berlin is so utterly different, with something worth considering at every turn. I've attached a couple of pics, but even a really extensive gallery really wouldn't do the place justice. Time perhaps for a reassessment of German cities and their retail. Many of them are like Frankfurt, but not all. Think Bremen, Hamburg, Munich and perhaps Köln if you're stuck for ideas. Failing that, just go to Berlin.

And the pics are of the Nike SB pop-up store (it'll be gone by Nov 10) and the Michalsky Gallery, if you're flash and made of cash.

Travelled to Manchester yesterday, jumped into a hire car and visited a place called Rawtenstall, which is about 18 miles north of the city. It's a small Pennine-side town and probably not the first place that you'd think of when seeking out your fab gear...if you're female. Yet, there's an indy called Sunday Best (again, perhaps not a name that makes you think fashion) selling everything from Moschino to Religion (a big brand I'm informed) in a store whose interior is like the most chi-chi parts of designer Manchester. It seems such an odd location, but there again, it has been going for 38 years, so it must be doing something right. And it's just opened a first floor for young fashion shoppers. It's impressive, dark and full of Gothic stage-set trickery combined with a Banksy-like approach to trompe l-oeil graphics. If you're in this part of the world, and I can't imagine why you might be, go visit (alternatively, take a look at Sunday Best online).

Returning to the city, the contrast provided by the newly-opened Helly Hansen store, in the Arndale centre, could hardly have been more stark. This is the UK's first standalone store for the brand beloved (they tell me) of North-Western fashion pundits. Maybe so, but you can't help but wonder at the POS that has been used on the shoe wall at the back of the shop. Each of the technical-looking pieces of footwear has been put on a clear acrylic plinth on the front of which are details of why it's worth buying. All well and good, except that unless you have very good eyesight (I don't) then the font was far too small to read.

A spokesman said that it was "techie stuff" and that therefore it didn't matter that you couldn't read it. The obvious riposte to this is if it doesn't matter, why is is there? Such carping aside however, Helly Hansen has all the attributes of a Scandi-brand - a large, somewhat anonymous white sales floor, large mono-chrome graphics and a lot of brightly coloured clothing - perhaps that's what they like in Manchester, although why it should be so wildly different from London is not immediately apparent. Plans are in place for more stores....in Glasgow, Liverpool and maybe Leeds. Nice touch putting a graphic at the door that reads: "THE FORECAST CALLS FOR RAIN." Where else would this be more likely to happen?