My Monday

So, today I went shopping. I say 'shopping', I mean I went to Brent Cross. Which is less like shopping and more like selling your soul to Mammon. And this was a quiet Monday morning. I dread to think what it is like on a Saturday afternoon, or anytime leading up to Christmas. Which, I suppose technically, is now. Oh dear.

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I also popped into my local Christian bookshop this afternoon. They're concentrating more on 'gifts' than on books, as books don't sell as well as tat. I'm intrigued to see how this goes down. Also, their music selection leaves a lot to be desired. What self-respecting Christian bookshop doesn't have Stryper and Petra? SRSLY?!

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When in Brent Cross earlier, I popped into the Apple store to salivate and lust. Outside the door, across the walkway and snaking round the balcony edge so famed in shopping centres the world over, was a queue. But not just any queue. No, the demographics of this queue was entirely Asian, and almost entirely male. I asked an Apple Store worker why there was a queue. She told us, rather dispassionately, that it was for the iPhone 4. I mistakenly thought that it had been released quite recently. No, no it hadn't. It was brought out three months ago.

Fascinating social phenomena.

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I passed the local college on my walk, full of 16 to 18 year olds with misplaced confidence. One was shouting an amusing but considerably rude greeting to a friend or acquiantance. His friend (or acquaintance) responded with 'WTF?!' Literally, he said the letters W, T and F, with a slightly perplexed and questioning intonation. (Then again, I'm not sure you can really say WTF in a monotone. It would lack... virility.) Anyway, the thought struck me that, not only is it weird to say 'WTF?!', it's also longer, due to 'W' having more syllables than 'what'. So, in one of the linguistic joys of the subculture that is 'the internet', shorthand, when spoken, is actually rendered pointless.

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And to finish, a little example of the Christian ghetto that amused me:

Me: Oh, so is Charli a Christian?
H: Er... yeah?! She went to Uganda!