please empty your brain below

can you have a candle with more than one wick?
I went to the Shepherds Bush Westfield to see it opened by Boris Johnson back in 2008, I have been back a very few times since to use the toilets. Having watched in passing the new extension being built I may one day call in and take a look. I think the new extension can be accessed from the Wood lane area so that would save having to walk through the old section to get to the new. The least time spent inside for me the better!
I wonder how long these mammoth retail shopping malls will last with the general decline in shopper footfall.
Maybe someone who likes visiting them could explain the attraction!
That candle will go nicely with my personalised bath bomb!
Wait, what? DG goes on hols and we get marketing fluff? I know it's early but am I missing the sarcasm/dig/satire?
I went there just before Christmas and spent aeons trekking around looking for a bookshop (beyond a poorly stocked WHSmith), without success.

Hopefully now that it is the biggest shopping centre in Europe it now boasts such a store.
This reminds me of when I worked in a supermarket and a fun day was organised to celebrate the installation of new freezers.

I worked in the bakery and when asked what we could do, she suggested cooking burgers in the bread ovens.

Needless to say that didn't happen. And there was much indifference from the customers.
@James: there used to be a sizable branch of Foyles, but it closed in 2015 to allow for some mall redevelopment work.
Why not go and stand outside Upmarket British Lingerie Chain and pretend you are me in my office in 2014?
@other John: the attraction is that it's warm inside and you can sit at a table without buying anything, and even bring your own food. If you go in the morning before the local yobs have woken up, it isn't crowded.
Apparently if you are into smelly candles, a double wick is deemed 'better' as it produces more smell, even though the candle burns faster, I'm unsure if a single wick would be just as smelly if you put more smelly stuff into the candle in the first place.

The "complimentary single wick candle" may well be a non-smelly version.
"Create your own bath bomb"? Isn't that the sort of thing people get sent to prison for?
Which wick is which?
If I go for the free jeans personalisation, does that mean I can have the rips and tears put in just where I want them?
Went there once to check it out and did not like it, I hated the layout and it was a trek across central London to get there, I shall stay faithful to Westfield Stratford as I can walk there across the park in fifteen minutes.
There was a BBC news piece yesterday about the decline in retail shopping in stores. We are still regularly regailed, even in recession, with stories of the 'efficiency' of capitalism, and yet these vast hangars are slated as future white elephants and loss-makers - so the companies involved throw vast sums at the problem that we pay cheerfully for in order to indulge our fantasies; me I have to be dragged into the Stratford one .....
I now realise my life has been an empty shell of mere existence without a paper flower masterclass.
15% off your nails? That's a nail and a half they might remove.

Be careful what you wish for.
Is the new layout no longer traversable, in the graph theory sense? I liked how previously one could do a figure of eight, upstairs, another figure of eight, then out.
Free gingerbread unicorn today, free Thameslink cupcake not long ago - has dg given up Creme Eggs this year?
I'm intrigued by the Signature hand and arm massage. I never knew signing documents could be so stressful that the hand and arm used to do so would need a special massage.
Another superlative and informative post,DG. You have shown me yet more reasons not to venture out to Shepherds Bush. I once took the plunge and entered the vast portals of the Stratford one,as I had just missed a train and thought their lavs might be good.
I couldn't get out of there quickly enough - ghastly! Now there is talk of a similar montrous conglomeration arriving in Croydon (which is bad enough as it is). 😱😱
Any other commenters out there picking up on the fact that this old girl HATES shopping!
I don't think there is much surprise that DG readers think a big shopping centre is 'ghastly' and other similar sentiments.
Indeed Messiah, lots of pious sanctimony in here today; how dare people enjoy such a frivolous and common pastime such as shopping?
At risk of being thought pious, I do not enjoy shopping of any kind, but I recognise that many people do, very much, and I do not begrudge them one whit of their enjoyment. They probably do not enjoy the things that I enjoy. Chacun à son goût.

And even without the enjoyment, or prospect, of going there, I am interested to read about this new piece of London infrastructure, especially when described in DG's unique style.
I thought you were on holiday!
As someone that is on the cusp of being 50, I fear I only have a few scant months left to have things thrust at me. I'm off to the mall.
I think whenever DG writes about subjects like this the comments always speak of how they hate everything about it and don't understand why people go to such places.

I think it's missing the point somewhat, there's clearly a lot of people who get their pleasure from purchasing material things and it supports a huge amount of people in work and maybe allows them to go out and do more interesting things with their money.

I think it's similar to me and my sister, I get a kick out of travel (currently coming to the end of a week travelling around Morocco) and I believe she gets the same buzz out of visiting shopping malls. Every Christmas she has a trip to Manchester for the Trafford Centre, despite living close to the Metro Centre, which seems to mostly have the same shops.
"I don't like this, and I don't understand why anybody else does" is a blinkered philosophy at the heart of many of the world's most intractable disagreements.
Very big (ie wide) candles sometimes have more than one wick, especially those candles in glass containers. If you have a big candle with just one wick, it tends to burn only the wax near the wick; so you end up with a hole right down through the middle (like a well-shaft).
To each their own.

Thank you for going so I don't have to.
My wife would like to know if the gingerbread unicorns were nice. She’s into unicorns at the moment!
Hadn't appreciated that work on the extension had progressed to the point of public opening. I've only been to Westfield (S Bush) twice and am not in much of a dash to revisit.

I've only been fully into the Stratford one a couple of times. Foolishly one of those visits was the first day where the crowd management was bordering on non existent and there was nearly a "crush" incident because some people couldn't move but others kept piling along. Having asked a security guard to do something and getting no response I was not impressed.

The only shop at Stratford I've used several times is M&S largely because it is right near the LU stn entrance and on the way to the bus stop for the 97. I tend to shop elsewhere as I find the interior design of Westfield disorientating and illogical. It takes far too long to get anywhere - deliberately so to ensure you walk past more shops.

It's clear from the enormous footfall and masses of shopping bags being clutched that many people do love these places but I've lost my liking of them. I loved Eldon Square when it opened up in Newcastle and I've wandered round many shopping centres over the years but I find Westfields the worst ones I've visited.
Having read subsequent comments,I read mine again and cannot see where I said that no-one should use these centres. I was expressing MY dislike of them and all shopping,even food shopping.
And as for scented candles-they get on my wick.😉
read the blog earlier this morning, and didn't realise you'd updated with an actual visit until I spotted it on Twitter
you are getting ever more adventurous DG, first a solo holiday, and now a Westfield
keep it up
First day at Westfield London: 30 Oct 2008
First day at Westfield Stratford: 13 Sept 2011
Dang! I soooo wanted to get to this but - despite getting within a couple of miles of the place - never actually got there :(

The idea of going via Kensington Gardens and making "a quick stop" to see if there were any parakeets who fancied some freshly cut apple just proved too much of a distraction.
I hope you'll be visiting the Personal Styling zone soon and reporting back to us.
And people wounder why i do all my shopping online.
I too detest all such shopping centres, and every aspect of the retail experience in general.

I say this here not to join the herd, nor to buck the trend of those subsequently criticising the herd. I do so in the hope that Cambridge Analytica may harvest this personal information about me, and I will no longer be force fed advertising on almost every online platform I use!
I lost the will to live at 'Experience Desk'.

Could be a song...
I suppose plying visiting consumers with free bubbles and fizz may make them just a little more amenable than before...

Would totally go for the free frozen yoghurt and 2pm dragon's egg though.
I quite enjoy a good shopping mall, but I'm not sure either of the Westfield efforts really qualify, partly because they're just too crowded at almost any time I've been. A relatively empty mall with a leisurely feel can be fine. Shopping malls and high-density urban living don't really fit together for me.

dg writes: I can recommend Tuesdays.
Westfield Stratford is planning two large extensions, one into the space behind M&S and tk maxx and the other to convert two levels of car parking below the outside street into an indoor mall. Wonder if they will make the Stratford Westfield bigger than Shepherd’s Bush.
Oh come now, grumps. Shopping centres are odious, yes. But the Bush Westfield is better than most. If it's not the weekend, it's spacious enough to swallow the crowds so you don't feel claustrophobic. And it does that while having a decent selection of shops, as opposed to having a lot of space because there's no reason to go there. It's rare that I need a shopping mall, but I put Westfield top of the list when I do.

The one thing it's embarrassingly lacking (and its Stratford sister has) is a Lakeland.
Dangling Lanyards would be a terrific name for a jazz band.

As for the shopping. A high-street with interesting architectural bits and bobs - and a Waterstones - takes the prize every time, Even in the rain.
There is a second shopping centre in Shepherds Bush. I frequently visit the W12 Shopping Centre without bothering with Westfield. In fact it's the first shopping centre as it predates Westfield by many years.

It used to be possible to cross from Shepherds Bush tube to it by a footbridge clad in a High Speed Train.
a big attraction of the OTHER Shepherds Bush shopping centre was a charity-run bookswap shop where you could choose and take away up to 3 books, free, but were encouraged to donate any number of your own unwanted volumes in return. Sadly it's no longer there, so I haven't had any reason to visit Shepherds Bush, but might go to look at the new extension sometime.
>>Free jeans personalisation with any purchase

Do they sew on a little tag with your name like your mum did when you were at school? :)
My take on this place is that it's like bing in an airport, but without the prospect of getting onto a plane and flying off to somewhere more interesting. Since Stratford opened, it has the additional disadvantage of not having an Olympic Park outside the back door to escape to.

I do miss the MDF high speed train that used to clad the foot bridge. The crossing between Stratford's new and old shopping centre is much more user-friendly, and I'm sure the Stratford Centre benefits from the footfall. The old shopping centre gets my vote, for its better diversity of affordable/friendly shops and stalls, and for the sheer fun of having two Poundlands under one roof.

As for making my own bath bombs, with a resonant metal tub, I do wonder if I disturb the neighbour downstairs sometimes, and always have the extract fan on.










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