St. Pauls Cathedral, HMS Belfast, an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet, Hamleys. That, plus a few bells and whistles, was the itinerary of a recent OpVic day trip to London.
From the place of worship to the toyshop, via war and gluttony.
Such was our journey, such is the journey of my entire culture in recent history. Andrew Marr speaks of the story of 20th Century Britain as 'the triumph of shopping over politics'. That's an understatement.
My advent quest is to return from the toyshop to the place of worship, but by another route.
"perhaps the reason the lamb had come to life and run away from the big store was that it could no longer bear to listen to the cash registers and the talk about buying and selling. And perhaps that was why Elisabet was following it." (Jostein Gaarder, The Christmas Mystery)
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