London Q- 'New Massive Shopping Centre at Shepherd's Bush'?
 

this week's TimeOut London e-mail edition Londoners' Poll was:

Is the new massive shopping centre at Shepherd's Bush:

A The best thing since Lakeside?
B A great opportunity to extend personal debt?
C Profoundly Depressing

Well don't care about the answers but want to know about this massive new shopping centre.

Was in Shepherd's Bush a lot in the 80s and i would have called the market area there depressing and tacky - where is this mega shopping thing and tell me more about it please? thanks

And what is the Lakeside reference to - some mega mall?

thanks again

Lakeside was the London area's first really serious car-based mall, opened at Thurrock, just north of the Dartford Crossing on the M25, in 1990.

Westfield - the place that's opening now - is just to the west of what used to be called the M41, the road up from Shepherd's Bush to the A40. Used to be known as White City.

Very tasty houses to the east, surprisingly good (and new) train and tube links to all kinds of places, and the most convenient place for basic, boring shopping for a huge swathe of western Greater Greater London: it's the quickest large-scale shopping place we can get to without getting wet from our bit of the Cotswolds, 70 miles away.

Whingeing journalists are having a field day moaning about how awful the thought of a mall so close to central London is. IMHO there's a place for quirky little places you get drenched walking between, and a place for branches of M&S you can get a new suit from without having to fight with Oxford St's parking problems. London's short of the latter.

Rotten timing, though.

I used to work just by where this thing is. It's the old railway marshalling yards in Wood Lane (directly opposite TV Centre). It's HUGE. They kept digging up "bombs" and we kept being evacuated.

It's very possibly the only thing that would persuade me to go back anywhere near White City (Other than QPR v THFC)

Q - i've probably asked before but at White City are there aany remains of the 1948 (?) Olympics or was there an earlier Olympics there as well?
thanks for your responses to OP Q - much appreciated

White city was 1908 ('48 was Wembley). No there's nothing in White city itself left from the games. However there is a couple of pavillions in Shepherds Bush itself from the White City (not just the olympics)

<In 2001, BBC Television Centre was damaged by a car bomb attack by the Real IRA. The bomb went off on Wood Lane, in front of the Television Centre news building.>

And immidiately opposite TV Centre is this new development.

The "bombs" I was referring to were WWII Hun bombs - the area was heavily bombed in the blitz. In fact they tended to turn out to be bits of railway track - but they had to treat them as bombs.

The official length of a marathon race isn't how far Pheidippides ran after the battle, but the distance from Windsor to White City.

Somewhere in the new mall - probably in the middle of the Nike store - there's the point to which the marathon distance was measured.

Westfield London Shopping Centre Homepage - Westfield London

Visit Westfield London Shopping Centre located in White City/Shepherds Bush in London. Access our website for information on Services, directions and ...
uk.westfield.com/london/ - 43k

The extra 384(?) yards is so that the race finished in front of the royal box.

what a waste of effort that extra 384 ? yards IMO

Presumably there would have been other dignitaries apart from the Royals in the Royal Box.
I suppose that they could all have toddled along and watched it from the verge.
I detect another King Charles head.
The Chunnel seems to have gurgled its way below the surface, but the hatred of the Royal Family is becoming another obsession.

The 1908 Olympics was a whole different world, and not one to cover the UK with any glory, even at the time. But the business with the marathon sounds more like a cock-up to me: maybe someone measured 26 miles to the stadium without realising that it didn't make much sense to run the finishing tape across the entrance (it was all a last-minute replacement job, don't forget).

Josser - i wonder if the Royal Train has ever gone thru the Chunnel? Or could the royal egos fit in the Chunnel?

The Royal Train could go through the tunnel. You'd like that wouldn't you?

Yes with all the Doltocracy on it and only one way.

Your just jelous that you're replacing a shaved chimp with an empty suit and we've got a nice old lady in a mad hat.

The Westfield mall opened the day I arrived In London, so it was all over the news on TV that night. They showed shots in the AM just before opening time, and it reminded me of the scenes of US Thanksgiving sale... they couldn't wait to rush in to start shopping. I think the residents in that neighborhood are quite pissed off because their street parking spaces are now taken up by shoppers - they don't have resident parking-only policy there.

The next day, i actually passed by it on the bus to Oxford. It is HUGE, and not particularly attractive from the outside.

You're just jealous that you've replaced a shaved chimp with an empty suit and we've got a nice old lady in a mad hat covering an empty head