Christmas at hand

The article “consumerism” in Wikipedia should contain just #REDIRECT: [[London]].

Since I came here I've been curious about Christmas in London. Last Wednesday when I left the office I went by tube to Oxford Circus. At the beginning I thought that there was some accident, or maybe a demonstration on the street, because there were those long queues inside the underground station, and the crowd was pushing trying to make their way up the stairs to Oxford Street.

But, alas! When I went off the station I found what you see in these pictures: an amazing packed tide of people just… shopping. The flow of shoppers coming from Piccadilly Circus via Regent Street was colliding with people walking down Oxford Street. As a result there was that thick and dense swarm, far worse than the worst crowd that you could find in any trendy club at 3am. It took me a few minutes just to turn left, walk 50 metres and cross the road. And that was still nineteen days to Christmas day!

It's a shame that I'm not going to be in London by Christmas day — I've been told that 24th December the evening is a spectacle in that area.