1728: Junk Shop

It’s always pleasant to find a new “weird shop” in which to spend some of your hard-earned money. We’ve all become so used to seeking out the chain stores to — in most cases, anyway — get the best deals that finding a legitimate local business that does something altogether unique is both a rarity and a pleasure.

The shop I “discovered” today is one I’ve walked past several times and always meant to have a look in, but never got around to it. If I’m honest, I can’t remember its name at all, but it’s in the Marlands shopping centre in Southampton (for those who don’t know Southampton, this is the smaller of the two shopping centres in the city centre, populated by a peculiar combination of small local stores and profitable chains like CEX, Disney Store and, err, Poundland) and is on the left in the “plaza” area, just after you wander past places like F. Hinds and Claire’s Accessories.

I believe it describes itself as an “Oriental goods” store, which essentially means, as you might expect, that it sells a variety of stuff from the Far East. Inside the store there’s a very odd mix of things ranging from cosplay to bags (I bought a Hatsune Miku bag today, which should be a more appropriate receptacle for all my Stuff than the very nice but slightly impractical laptop bag I’m currently improvising with) via collectible figures, hand-painted rice bowls, kimonos and some random tourist tat like fridge magnets.

It is, in short, the sort of shop I can see myself spending a fair amount of money in. Whether or not I actually will spend any more money in there remains to be seen, but it’s certainly a cool little place that I will probably now take any visitors who might enjoy that sort of thing to go and see.

It reminds me a little of a shop in the now-closed Bargate Shopping Centre here in Southampton, which was called something like Smells, Bells and Doo-Dahs. This, too, was a Far East-inspired store, though it didn’t, as I recall, sell much in the way of anime bits and pieces. Instead, it stocked, once again, a bizarre combination of items, ranging from various different incense scents to an impressively intimidating collection of actual (albeit blunt) swords of both Eastern and Western origin. I don’t think I ever bought anything there, but it was a landmark sort of place; I was comforted by its presence, and always enjoyed just having a browse, even if nothing ever convinced me that I really needed it.

The Bargate Centre in general was good for that, actually; I was sad to see it finally close after dying a very long and drawn-out death over the course of the last few years. Pop into Bargate in its prime (which was during my time at university, so between 1999 and 2002 or so) and you could check out an impressively stocked non-chain video games store, buy some unusual and stylish clothing, get a tattoo or piercing, purchase some bondage gear and dildos, start a sock collection actually worth bragging about and then cap off your visit with a trip to Sega World, an actual bona-fide coin-op arcade, boasting a selection of cool games both old and new. It was tragic to see these things disappear one by one, but either their relevance diminished over time, or they were simply destroyed by the cutthroat nature of modern high-street business.

I’m glad a few places like the shop I can’t remember the name of still exist, though; it makes me happy to think of people eking out a living from selling the strangest things, and while places like that stock interesting and fun things I might want to buy, I’m more than happy to support them.