A Small Bout of Accidental Watch Theft

“You are the last honest man in this country. But with that wonderful accent, you’re not from around here, are you?”

What happened was this: the weekend before going to Minneapolis, I discovered that there was a Swatch shop in the Mall of America, and that they took online reservations for pick-up. And earlier in the week, I’d discovered that Swatch had just released a reimagining of the 1988 watch, Flumotions. As I was going to be there anyway, why not pick one up?

On Monday, I sauntered into the shop, got served by somebody who was still being taught the ropes by a more senior person, and was handed the watch. They were also both curious about the vintage Swatch watch I was wearing. Anyway, off I went. “Have a great day!” I got on the train. And the doubts set in. I went through my emails from the weekend and re-read them. Plain as day: “This is not a purchase. You’ll pay when you pick the watch up.” But they had just given it to me and sent me on my way.

When I finally got checked into the hotel, I gave the shop a ring:

“Erm…so I was in your shop a couple of hours ago and picked up a watch?”

“Oh, yes! The British guy in the red shirt? Is thee something wrong with the watch?”

“Well, no. It’s just that I think I haven’t paid for it.”

“I’ll…just have a chat with my manager…can I call you back?”

So that’s how I ended up going back to the Mall of America Wednesday night to make sure nobody got into any trouble. Watch purchased. Praise given. Leaving, face red with embarrassment. But at least everything got sorted in the end.

Anyway, the Mall. The largest in the Western Hemisphere! And…it’s alright. Despite the 2000s upgrade it has clearly received, with all the supports and cladding coated in high-gloss white (look at the difference between pictures from the 1990s and 2015 onwards), the overall feeling of being in MoA is that you have stepped into a time warp and somehow ended up back in the mid to late 90s. Hanson, TLC, and En Vogue are piped overhead as you wander past Barnes & Noble and Francesca’s and get lunch at the Rainforest Café, right next to the Food Court. It’s like a world trapped in the End of History; everything in a time bubble and you can just go on SpongeBob rides without having to deal with the real world.

Of course, the picture of this reality is broken with it being a Pepsi Mall, a sure sign that this is just a cruel, twisted fantasy. But, I did appreciate that when I walked into the mall from the transit centre, the first thing I saw was a stage just outside the main atrium. Reader, I did look for the Kid On The Escalator.

If the Mall was not exactly what I was after, then another part of Minneapolis was. I’d even forgotten it, really, until the train through the centre reminded me of what I was missing.

SKYWALK.

Minneapolis is home to the largest enclosed skywalk — not just in North America, not just the Western Hemisphere, but the entire world. 10 miles of it cross-crossing the city centre. And it is absolutely glorious. I haven’t had as much fun since I last wandered around the Barbican for an entire day¹. Like the Mall, it is something of its Time. But as bits of it were built at different times, that is not so bad! One moment you’re wandering around a tiny corridor that last saw a new carpet in the mid-90s and now resembles liminal Adam Curtis b-roll footage, the next you wander into Wells Fargo, with their idea of “would you like to pretend you’re in a New York bank from 1923? We’ve got you covered.” Yes, it does default to “corporate late 80s/mid 90s” — many of the skyways enter into banks or big business atriums. But while MoA made me just feel weird, the “Nakatomi Plaza” feel was apparently just what I was looking for.

So, yes, it’s very much the usual problematic American “public/private” mix, with the skyway connections being owned and operated by the containing buildings, resulting in a system that is only really navigable during business hours, but my goodness, you need to step into Government Center. Is it a building that you’d go into normally? Of course not! As a station along the skyway, though, you transit through it, expecting…well, not a lot, and it’s just amazing. The building is bi-sected with a central atrium that allows you to see both exposed sides, all the way up to the 24th floor. I stopped in the middle just staring upwards for a good couple of minutes. Butler Square is completely different — late 70s construction, but instead of glass and steel, it’s all exposed timber from the old Butler Brothers warehouse, making it feel more like an Ewok Village or something from Expo ‘67, right next to Target Center and Target Field (which of course both have red skyways). The different amounts of care that parts of the system has is also a strength — because yes, you do get bits that have the same set of chains over and over again, but in other, more run-down spaces, you get watch repairs, Korean egg sandwiches, and other little delights. I hear that before the pandemic it was a little more lively, and there’s plenty of empty shopfronts as you go around, but I will say that it never felt empty in any of my travels during the week.

One morning, I walked to the work with “This Is What She’s Like” playing. It was transcendental. Walking across the skyway, looking left and right, seeing parallel skyways either side, repeating into the distance, with people walking in time with the beat. In time, in time

So, er, yeah. My love of the skyways was hilariously over-the-top, and apparently infectious, to the extent that on Wednesday, I led an _expedition of co-workers from breakfast to the workplace. I just love a completely different way to see a city. Streets in the sky were always a good idea, and we were absolute fools to have been talked out of them.

Ill…Ill…Ill

Coming up to week 2…3? of being ill. I’m currently left with a throat that is either suffering from mucus buildup or acid reflux (or more likely, both), a crackly throat first thing in the morning, a need to be around a box of tissues at all times…and really, I am very sick of being sick. Having to change plans every weekend because I barely have the energy to do anything is getting old. And I’m off to Minneapolis tomorrow…three airports isn’t going to make things worse, of course…

(as an aside, I remain tickled at all my American coworkers that look on in horror when I tell them I plan to use public transit on onsite visits. Especially in San Francisco - you get out of the airport straight into BART and just stay on one train until you get to the financial centre…and work or your hotel is literally a five minute walk away. Why on earth would you want to sit on 101 in heavy traffic???)

Anyway, Maeryn and I will have a blow-out “Daycare is closed for a training day that coincidentally happens to be Columbus Day, but we’re not celebrating it in particular” day, even if I have to pump myself full of steroids to get through the day. A Daddy Promise.

Transformers Update

Well, I guess it’s time for my semi-annual post of “how I’m almost finished buying Transformers”, a regular series which has probably been going on since about…I don’t know, 2002? Anyway, the big purchase this year was in the Studio Series 86 toyline, which is basically “all your favourite G1 toys from the film just before they encounter horrible deaths, though we’ll also sell you versions so you can re-enact childhood trauma?". They’ve finally got around to Megatron.

Megatron is always a controversial figure, because every time a new one is released, a bunch of people will complain that he doesn’t turn into a gun and their childhood is ruined, etc, etc. Of course, Hasbro probably a) doesn’t want the publicity of a bunch of ICE agents or just regular cops shooting children dead because they’re holding a replica Walther P38, and b) even if they did, it’s illegal to sell toys like that these days in rather large markets like…oh, the US. So, anyway, since the early 90s, Megatron has been (mostly) a tank. And it’s been fine.

Here, I have to make a confession because I never actually really liked the original Megatron toy. My friends had Megatron — I played with him, even borrowed him for a few days here and there…but I had no desire to own him. Yes, he does have articulation, but his robot mode barely holds together, and then there’s gun mode. Which sure, is great if you’re playing War, but it is absolutely useless as a play pattern with other Transformers as it’s so big that no other Transformer can hold him. So it’s a big gun that can’t really stand on its own. Great! Meanwhile, Prime turns into a very decent lorry with a fun trailer¹ So I had no real desire to add him to my collection, instead preferring more interesting Decepticon leaders like Scorpononk. Even during the Action Master years, I plumped for a Shockwave figure over the non-transforming Megatron (although, to be fair, that was probably more determined by Shockwave being available as a £5 figure whereas Megatron only came with a £30 vehicle playset).

All the subsequent Megatrons² have been perfectly reasonable, but they normally gave lip-service to the original G1 toy or animation model. Studio Series 86 Megatron is different, though, because Hasbro and Takara have performed wizardry.

Somehow, they’ve managed to create a toy that has an almost-perfect rendition of the G1 comic/cartoon model and get a serviceable tank mode out of him, but at the same time hiding most of the tank details when he’s in robot form. Finally, a Megatron without compromise.

(is this the only Transformer I bought this year? hahaha, no. But one in the series of “I don’t think I ever have to buy another version of this figure ever again”)

Empty House Again

Family visit is over, so it’s time for a bullet-point catchup round!

• I complain about this country’s attitude to urban design (basically: “how do you want to die today, pedestrian?") a lot, but fair is fair: Americans really do know how to make a park. This summer, in addition to the smaller (but still very reasonable: have you ever seen a British council-provided playground that has covered seating and a barbeque?) parks, we’ve also been to Summit Park, West Chester Splash Park, and as of last weekend, Tower Park in Fort Thomas. The latter in particular is pretty impressive: multiple multi-storey adventure playgrounds, a zipwire¹, puzzles, swings (of different types covering all ages from toddlers to adults), a garden with musical instrument flowers, and a covered area where you could reasonably fit an entire street inside. I also see that the forest that is a few blocks from our house² is getting a bike park later in the year. For all their faults, Americans seem to put a lot more effort in than your typical British council…

• New iPhone has turned up after they decided to attempt delivery on a Friday night just as soon as I put Maeryn in the bath (and didn’t even try the doorbell). I am therefore undergoing the familiar journey of “oooh, shiny new iPhone! Look at the new camera!…and now it’s just the phone that has lost all my Kindle bookmarks” At least this time it’s a shiny new orange colour?³ (update after writing this - it did not copy over my iMessages, so I’m attempting to upload 1m messages into the cloud before I have to send the old phone back)

• I do wish my family could have a flight either from Heathrow to Cincinnati and vice versa without something going wrong. I have never known any other flight that consistently seems to not get a jetbridge (at Heathrow!!!?).

• Although I seem to have avoided adding a new collection to my life by simply buying a fancy (well…Chinese copy of a Mont Blanc, so fancy at $50 instead of $1000) fountain pen, I was not prepared for all the possibilities of different inks. Which is why the house now has…a lot more fountain ink in it than you might expect. I have, so far, resisted buying Ohio River…

• Thanks to Dad, our cardboard mountain has receded, and I now have a working garage door opener. Frankie Says You’re 73% American.

• Mum continues to be the best interrogator that MI6 never hired. At various points during their holiday, I left her alone in a shop or restaurant for under a minute or two, and she had extracted the lifestory of servers, checkout assistants, random people in the street…

• We had to print stickers of the family (especially ‘GRANDDAD!') after they left for one sad toddler.

• Bonnie can move quite fast in an electric wheelchair.

• Hades II on Switch 2? I’ll take two!

Granddad!

Maeryn has a new favourite word, and that word is “granddad”. See also: “granddad’s van!” when she sees the family coming back in from clearing out the local Bath & Body Works. She does like Mum and Bonnie too, to the extent of chasing Bonnie in her wheelchair around the house on a ridable bee…but “granddad!” has definitely left a big impression.

Meanwhile, I have almost completed my quest for all the chocolate machinery by finally obtaining a panning machine. Be afraid.

Engage!

Fancy New Chair has arrived. It has six different knobs to twiddle with, but the best feature is that you can move the support arms and pretend you’re Picard from TNG. I will not be taking further questions at this time.

I meant to have a six month check-in on this year’s books, but that definitely didn’t happen. I will say that H.E. Bates’s Love For Lydia felt like more of a horror story than the “yawn, really?” 2025 horror novel I also read this month, which I will decline to name because both the author and her fans often react badly to any sort of criticism…but you can bear it in mind for the month of August when I put the whole year page up.

Family arrives on Wednesday. I only have about 3 tonnes of cardboard to remove before then…

The Tea System

We have, over a decade-plus, devised a foolproof system for milk in our tea. Tammy’s tea should look like me, and my tea should look like Tammy. Simple!

An odd week, for a variety of different reasons. I continue to say “oh, I won’t spend much this month” and then…buy a new office chair (again, in fairness, my current one is suffering from 8 years of Helvetica clawing at it). And then I discovered that there’s a reprint of Octavo Redux coming in September and I had always felt a little sad I missed the original hardback printing…

…and I also bought some beef for a roast dinner, which was probably one of the biggest cases of sticker shock I’ve had for a while. But apparently that doesn’t make national news for days and days on end at the moment.

A Drunk Tooth Fairy

An adventure in parenting. We’re both in our bedroom with Maeryn, getting towards the time of the evening when it’s time to brush our teeth, this week mostly to Ms. Rachel¹, when Tammy sees something in the carpet.

It’s a tooth.

We both stare at each other and then start trying to work out how and when Maeryn lost it. I am distraught that we didn’t even notice that she was in pain, saying that we’re terrible parents for not realizing. Tammy, however, is not wallowing, and doing the proper thing of getting Maeryn to open her mouth. Which she eventually does².

All her teeth are there.

So now we have gone from “how did we not notice that Maeryn has lost a tooth” to “er, there is a random human tooth in our bedroom”

Daycare Fight Club? Drunk Tooth Fairy? We will never know.

Children are fun! And full of surprises! Horrifying surprises.

Water!

We failed at the picnic part of the day’s plans (too hot!), but we had a bunch of fun with rocks and water.

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August? Great Scott!!

My worst habit: my ears perking up whenever I hear an American talking about “one hit wonders”. I dare you to say Dexys, I dare you

As tempting as it seemed, I had not flown to London to ask Eno about his past, to finally ask him about that mysterious “T” on the cover of Music for Airports, recording Devo inside a barn in the German countryside, or the ubiquitous question he might hate most of all: “So what was David Bowie really like?”

A great, long, interview with Eno.

Maeryn had her first ride in an electric Barbie car this weekend. I think the next time we do that will be when she’s 25. Or at least after some training on Mario Kart concerning steering…