This cheerful seasonal scene, complete with 9-foot inflatable Santa, is brought to you from the Beckham Salon, Crawford Street, W1. This small Arab hairdresser’s shop is normally merely a shrine (verging on homoerotic, to my eye) to the most carefully coiffed man in international soccer, and hangout for young men whose hair is almost as insanely tidy as their hero’s.
But this time of year it sprouts, with utter disregard for the cultural apartheid strangers suppose to operate in Marble Arch – and danger to low-flying aircraft – the most fabulously gaudy Christmas decorations.
Is it the Arab, the shop, or the shrine that is small?
Compared to a nine-foot Santa, probably all of them.
The day after tomorrow it’s also Sinterklaas. This year for the first time there were yellow en purple ‘Black Peters’ on national tv. Apparently (so we were told) Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet sailed through a rainbow. Although I am not sure I completely believe this. It sounds a bit doctored.
It sounds like your Arab businessman has decided to emphasize the ‘business’. Good for him.
I suspect his clientele doesn’t change by it and it’s just he likes dressing up the shop.