The Arab at Harrods

When I visit London I usually walk down Hyde Park, pass the Lanesborough Hotel (where Michael Jackson stayed when he was doing some concerts), pass The Mandarin Hotel and then have a look around Harrods. On a Saturday afternoon I like to circle it before entering and see the bored chauffeurs in huge limousines waiting for their employers.

In 2003 I took my mum to London just before Christmas and she couldn’t believe a box of six Harrod’s Christmas crackers were £85 – for six crackers! Once we were sat outside Harrods having sandwiches once when plumes of smoke starting rising up from an underground stairwell or grid (can’t remember.) The IRA had bombed London a little before so we joined sways of people walking away quickly.

I was walking around Harrods once when an Arab is full robes appeared with a body guard as fat as a phone box and just as tall. As I followed them I wondered why he needed protecting. Someone might give me £50,000 if I rendered the Arad dead with the pencil I was carrying. I didn’t follow them for long as they left through one of the side doors and slid into a car worth more than the house where I live.

It wasn’t just the Arab that remained in my mind but a woman a few feet behind him. She was carrying lots of boxes (not as many as shown here) and a slightly pained expression while the Arab (wearing sandals) and was not carrying anything. Faces are difficult to paint to I piled the boxes so high it blocked out her features.

Legs gone wrong…

Sam doesn’t look impressed…