Hi all

please , What is the best time to go shopping in London and Big Sale in the thier shops?

Boxing Day?

Tuesday mornings.

Sales these days are pretty much permanent and when's best depends on what you are after - I always, for example, find the John Lewis midsummer Clearance Event is better for electronics than their post Christmas one

As soon as the stores open in the morning....after 11am I avoid shopping areas and centres like the plague!

The answer to the words the poster used is that most London stores have big sales in the last couple of weeks of June and the weeks after Christmas.

These dates vary by store, and from year to year. There's a myth floating round some uninformed foreigners, especially in the US, that this is some kind of legally-enforced period during which, unlike the rest of the year, stores are allowed to discount. That myth is as nonsensical as believing American stores' simultaneous launch of Christmas on Black Friday is written in the American Constitution

But, as dotheboys hints, that's all a bit of a tired old ritual these days. Stores have permanent sales on the internet, they have short-term sales in their physical shops on and off throughout the year, and there's a host of really aggressive permanent discounters (like Primark) who undercut everyone, always. Britain's relatively light in out of town discount malls - partly because there's so much discounting in conventional city centres.

What's more, although the media churn out the same old codswallop every year on Dec 27 about shops being crowded with Sale shoppers, the numbers actually participating in these quaint traditions are falling. There are just too many alternatives to being crushed in a department store's china department for January Sales to dominate people's thinking the way they once did.

The December 27th story is mostly cheap journalism, like the stories of frocks at Ascot. It is noticeable that in the broadcast shots most of those rushing through the doors are Chinese. Why?

"It is noticeable that in the broadcast shots most of those rushing through the doors are Chinese. Why?"

Because that's what they (not necessarily all Chinese, but the ones in shot) come here for.

Believe it or not, most Western brands, especially of clothing but also a lot of allied stuff like handbags, are cheaper in London than in the countries they're made in. So however pathetic the Sale reductions, and however contemptuous chartley is bound to be (I'm sort of in the business and I'm contemptuous, so I'd have thought he'd massively out-contempt me) of the ridiculous prices people pay for designer labels - if they're the sort of thing you like, London Sales (and Bicester) are the whatever the Mandarin is for Mecca. Apart from anything else, UK law doesn't always require the country of origin to be on the label - so many Chinese really do believe that bag was made in England, so it's "more genuine" than the one they've got in their upmarket mall.

Some tourists come over here with friends' shopping lists: other expatriate Chinese (we've got hundreds going on thousands at my friendly neighbourhood ancient university) make a tidy supplementary living (they're not all children of the Politburo) taking orders - probably sometimes using the diplomatic bag (their dad might not be China's Foreign Secretary - but his daughter's probably on the same staircase, or his nephew's in the Bullingdon) to save on postal costs.

If you ever hear anyone tell you how the Chinese are so clever they're going to take over the world, just bear that in mind. And remember these queue-addicts are probably in China's top one percentile for brains.

I remember when the Japanese were going to take over the world.

Flanner, I try to out-contempt you on occasions, but it's always a struggle.