You never know who youÕll meet at HarrodÕs checkout

Date Published: {J}

The prices are generally so ridiculous in Harrod’s that you have to settle for something small – and then hope that you’re as good as the rest of the tens of thousands walking in the Knightsbridge area of London, all of them carrying that distinctive green Harrod’s bag.

For anyone who makes a trip to London, the visit to Harrod’s is as much a part of the ‘must do’ tourist trail as the Tower of London, The London Eye, The London Transport Museum, Buckingham Palace, The Victoria and Albert Museum, Westminster Abbey, and Petticoat Lane.

Harrod’s is one that everyone eventually hits . . . and the fact that it has changed ownership to the Qatar Royal Family won’t make the slightest difference.In the case of Harrod’s, you know yo

u’re in the right part of town when you hear the hum of the Daimlers parked at the kerbside keeping the air conditioning at perfect temperature. Meantime, the chaffeurs are out giving the desultory swish of a cloth to the gleaming windscreens.

Nearby, in the estate agent’s windows, the apartments overlooking Hyde Park, or Kensington Park, will still set you back £3million-plus . . . and that’s the middling ones at a time of recession.

When it comes to Harrod’s, unless you’ve got the dosh in plenty, and are prepared to spend silly money on some fashion stuff, then you are in there basically to buy something like one of those presentation tins of biscuits, while gawking at people who have serious money to spend.

My usual routine is to walk about the place looking dead casual by not turning pale when I eventually get to the price tag on the sleeve. Of course, I’m kidding no one! My disguise drops when I glance at the tag, forget myself, and exclaim under my breath . . . “Jaysus, who’d pay £1,500 for a jacket?”

I also like to use the visit as an occasion to watch closely ‘how the other half lives’ and to build little dramas around purchases such as a £1,000 ski jacket and £500 on the trousers.

Whatever the nationality, they are the same people who can afford to queue for the designer handbags which are a snip at a few thousand . . . like those three Japanese girls I saw last year who just loved the Gucci bags and had the credit cards with which to buy them.

In Harrods, you never know who you might meet – for instance, I once ran into the owner, Muhamad Al Fayed, on that incredible Egyptian staircase which he had built as a centrepiece of Harrod’s. Finding that escalator is always my last hope of finally finding my way out of the place.

It was some months after Princess Di and Dodi Al Fayed had died in that car crash in Paris. As Muhamad Al Fayed approached on the escalator, I looked him in the eye and half-prepared to say a word of sympathy. But his four security heavies closed in around him, and the delusion a Joe Soap might offer a word of condolence to a billionaire, was quickly dissipated.

Nearby, was something akin to an ‘altar’ dedicated to the lost lovers, Diana and Dodi.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.