Like many I left university with a degree, and no real clue about what I wanted to do with it. By luck, and for the craic of it, I ended up working in a small board games shop in Soho called Just Games.
Just Games was one of those quirky independent shops, with a world famous reputation, and a massive turnover (for a small shop). A business that had been established since 1968 making it probably the oldest game shop in the world. Maybe The Complete Strategist in New York. An independent shop regularly featured in Time Out, the Telegraph, the Lady magazine and a host of media mags.
Needless to say the shop has gone now, evicted by greedy landlords, the Regent Palace Hotel. Confident they could make more money from the property, they destroyed Just Games, the small independent shoe shop next door and forced the equally famous London butchers next door to relocate.
Rather than making money, the property then left empty for 5-10 years before being replaced by a chain store, albeit a Fresh & Wild rather than say a Tesco’s. The French would never let stupid crimes like this happen.
Soho still has plenty of independents left, and legendary amongst them is Gerry’s off licence on Old Compton Street. The window is a vast array of exotic alcohol from around the world, seriously go; the window alone will inspire awe.
So I’ve been saving Gerry’s to see what they had on the Mead front. Perhaps something Polish, or Lithuanian, maybe a Dark Mead made famous by Neil Gaiman’s Sandman.
Instead disappointment looms, and the two Meads they had were Harvest Gold and Lindisfarne. The two Meads I’ve already found. Damn and blast.
Neither were the Meads in question cheap, at £9.25 for Lindisfarne and £7.50 for Harvest Gold. But sod the price; I’d rather spend my money in an independent retailer than in Morrisons, if at least they had something quirky to buy,
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