Shopping: online, and not.

Liverpool girls wait for the shops to open

As you can now see, there are several advertisements on this site. I have tried to keep them as unobstrusive as possible.

At the bottom you will find a large display ad for Net-a-Porter. You can choose to order from the UK or US site simply by clicking the change currency button in the top left-hand corner after you've clicked on the banner. Even if Net-a-porter is way out of you league, go and feast your eyes, anyway.

Today, at Cricket, I saw a row of Lanvin dresses, and ten £1000 Balenciaga handbags just lying on a shelf waiting to be bought. Round the corner where the Cavern Club used to stand, where the Beatles started out, is a whole Vivienne Westwood store. You could stay at the about to be completed Hard Day's Night Hotel - ie live inside a Beatles song, and then go shopping. Liverpool redux!

Nails and slips

On the matter of how much it costs to maintain one's grooming, the prices some readers have been coming up with manicures and pedicures in the US have been making my jaw drop. I recently made the mistake of having a perfectly ordinary manicure at Harvey Nichols, which cost a whopping £40 ($80) but my neighbourhood salon, where I have a monthly pedicure, charges £25 or $50, and once again, for nothing special. And you have to make an appointment.

My colonial cousins, you do not know how lucky you are.

Meanwhile, here in Liverpool I have noticed that one sign of the city's regeneration is the number of serious handbags you're now seeing on the streets. At the MetQuarter, I walked into Flannels, where you can pick up and fondle bags by Yves St Laurent, Prada, Fendi, Miu Miu etc and hurriedly put back a £785 Gucci dress. I did buy a Vanessa Bruno jersey LB day dress, but was worried about slight cling. The sales assistant gave me a top tip: go to M&S and buy a half slip, she said, the dress will glide over the slip instead of sticking to your bum. The half slip is a really old-fashioned piece of lingerie, and I couldn't believe they still sold them, but yes, they did and as she said, it did the trick.

Thought for the day

Once it was power that created style. But now high styles come from low places, from people who carve out worlds for themselves in the nether depths, or tainted 'undergrounds.' Tom Wolfe