Of Underwear and Silver Linings

There's a store in the UK called Primark. In Ireland it's called Penney's, but it's really the same thing. They sell clothes and other household items of reasonable quality and questionable style for virtually nothing. And when I say "virtually nothing," I don't mean "cheap for the UK but would be outrageously overpriced in any normal country" - I mean really, virtually nothing. When I was living hand-to-mouth in Ireland/Northern Ireland five years ago, I bought any clothes that I happened to need at Penney's/Primark because it was by far the cheapest way to clothe myself short of growing my own cotton and weaving and spinning and sewing it myself, and, let's face it, the overhead on that sort of operation would have been prohibitive. Several of the items - a pair of cargo pants, some shorts - wore out pretty quickly, but several of them I still own and wear. I'm thinking particularly of the half-dozen black and grey boxer briefs that have become central to my wardrobe and that had, until the past few months, held up remarkably well for the amount of use and abuse they get week in, week out.

So when my suitcase failed to arrive by Friday evening and I had given up hope of ever seeing it again (I left for London on Tuesday), I vowed that I would not wear the same socks, t-shirt, and underwear for a fifth day, and my thoughts turned immediately to Primark. A quick web search (incidentally, I heard today that the carbon footprint of doing one Google search is the equivalent of running an electric kettle - can that be right?) revealed that there is a Primark just down the District Line from here in Hammersmith, and so I hopped on over. After a brief, and entirely unnecessary, perambulation around the entire circumference of the Hammersmith Underground Station, I found the Primark, grabbed a handful of 1.67-pound t-shirts (that's sterling, not lbs), 10 socks at 5-for-2-pounds, and bunches and bunches of my favorite underwear. I've learned that Primark is best for buying things that very few people will ever actually see you wearing, so I steered clear of the shirts and jeans, checked out, and handed over my 20 pounds with a smile and a gleam in my eye.

You know what's coming, right? Well, after a nice moonlight walk along the Thames and a small meal at a small pub with a small crowd of mostly old people, I hopped back onto the Tube, opened the door to Yaya's house, and there was my suitcase, big as life, standing in the hallway. The bastards had come while I was out shopping, and now I had a backpack full of mostly extraneous clothing that I can't actually fit in my luggage. The solution, however, is obvious: I'll wear my old tattered socks and underwear and t-shirts one more time over the coming week - give them a sort of valedictory circuit - and then chuck them in the bin, replacing them with my brand-new, virtually-free items from Primark. I've never been this excited about underwear in my life. Well, almost never.

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Okay, so the baggage thing has been less than ideal, but let me share with you something that I bet you didn't know, and which, upon learning it myself, briefly made me forget my suitcase woes. This is that steak & kidney pudding is not really pudding. I know! But wait, here's the cool part: it's still really, really good. At least it is at this place called Porter's near Covent Garden. Porter's is a little on the touristy side (the only other people in there on Thursday night were an older American couple), but it's also one of the only "traditional" English restaurants left in London - at least one of the few that doesn't also serve items from the Tikka Masala family - and its slightly Epcot Centerish atmosphere is mitigated by the Tina Turner and George Michael hits that blare, tinnily, from the overhead speakers. Porter's also has lots of pies - Shepherd's Pie, Leek-and-Potato Pie, Lamb-and-Apricot Pie - and you all know how I love pie, so I may just go back there before I leave. Anyway, here's what the steak & kidney pudding looked like:



For dessert, I considered ordering the spotted dick, but they sell that at Marks & Spencer's, so I demured.