2 July 2026

Discombobulated after having to deal with some unsettling personal stuff today, I found myself drawn to a few favourite spots in my immediate neighbourhood that offered both the comfort of familiarity and values I can get behind.

Arjuna, the wholefoods shop that goes back to the late hippy era (1970), was one of the first worker cooperatives in the UK, radical at the time. It's still owned and run by members who are amongst the warmest and friendliest people in Mill Road (where the bar is quite high for friendliness). Their food stock is so varied and interesting, like the local people who shop here, that I love browsing around it.

and the Amnesty International bookshop (which feels like a personal relationship because they took a few hundred books off me when we moved here, carting them in hand-held trolleys down the road) -

I love everything it represents, from its dogged support of Palestine to its probably doomed commitment to upholding print books in the face of aggressive corporate capitalist tech giants and mass marketing.

(And again, the lovely people who work here).