Created: 24 Aug 2005
I wanted to buy a sail bag today, so I decided to go to Decathlon and have a look at their extremely cheap bags.
The first thing I noticed about Decathlon is their terrible website, which simply oozes cheapness. The whole thing is riddled with clunky drop-down menus, awful page layout and hideously long URIs. It has some charming elements of frenchness, for example their habit of referring to waterskiing, wakeboarding and other sports which involve being dragged across the water by smelly and hopelessly fuel inefficient powerboats as “Drawing sports”. Now this makes perfect sense in french, but had they even spent 5 minutes with any UK native looking at their website they might have realised that we don’t have the slightest clue what it means. I wanted to find out where their nearest store was, but the relevant page on their website simply was not there for several months. So, having established that they have a store very near to Canada Water tube station, I took a trip down there this evening.
On approaching the shop, one thing was apparent: it was very big. In fact it’s split into two buildings and the one I visited was roughly the size of a large supermarket. And it’s stuffed full of sports gear. Unfortunately, however not stuffed full of windsurfing gear, because apparently it’s all in Stockport; a fact that the website notably fails to point out. The sign on the door saying “Windsurfing” possibly refers to the 4 models of windsurfing wetsuits available inside. It is however the biggest sports shop I have ever been inside and it does have some pretty cheap kit. Strangely though I found it quite difficult to actually find anything I would want to purchase. So, not a successful start to the evening.
I found myself in an unfamiliar part of London, much further South and East than I normally venture. So, I decided to wander to another tube station and have a look around Surrey Quays and Rotherhithe.
The thing about living in London is that it’s too easy to spend one’s life trudging backwards and forwards between the same places - in my case West Hampstead and Clerkenwell. when people ask if I enjoy living in London, I often very defensively say that I don’t make as much use of it as I should. Which is true. My point of view is that I pay a significant premium to live in a diverse place with many attractions and entertainments. If I don’t make use of them, then I’m not getting value for money. Today I discovered that value for money doesn’t mean galleries, museums, theatres and bars.
Just as every house in England was once built from red brick, now it seems the fashion is for light coloured brickwork and the area near Canada Water tube is a good example, with every building constructed from similar materials. It’s also quiet - very quiet for an area just a couple of miles from the City. I stopped at Surrey Water to use the GPS on my PDA. Sitting on a bench I watched about 5 people walk past in as many minutes; in fact I saw more waterfowl in that time than humans.
Reaching the river and following it as closely as possible, moving West, one comes to Rotherhithe and the scenery starts to change. The buildings become a mix of conversions of warehouses and wharves, and modern low-rise flats interspersed with the odd (well maintained) council estate. I strolled past parks and churches and down a busy main road to Bermondsey station, where the Jubilee line would whisk me home in its usual efficient manner. What interests me about the new Jubilee line stations is how completely they break with the traditional role of tube stations in London. Other tube stations blend in to their surroundings; often inconveniently so, for those looking for them. The new stations are, however, gleaming structures of glass and steel that completely dominate the neighbourhood and I find that very disconcerting, although I don’t think they’re ugly just boring. The glass and steel, Norman Foster style is everywhere and it’s time for something new.