I know that there are several schoolkids who read these pages - so without trying to sound patronising I’m just warning you that this posting contains reference to material that could potentially be unsuitable for those under 18 - and possibly even offensive to those over 18. So - if you are lucky enough to be under 18 then you may admire the picture below - and if you also press the play button the media player underneath it you can enjoy the sound of a midi-sequenced version of a very popular song from the 1970s - which is still popular today. Turn up the volume loud - and go right ahead and dance to it if you like.

If you are over 18 then click MORE below to continue.

Here in Kingsbury suburb of North West London - there is a strange shop just off the High Street - on a road called Honeypot Lane - sandwiched between a solicitor’s office and the derelict Prince of Wales pub that I wrote about in one of my prior postings about our local High Street. It’s called Cherry Pye Boutique - and it’s an exotic lingerie shop. Neither of these things are the strange aspects of it. No. What’s strange about this shop is as follows:

• There never appears to be anyone running the shop. The shutters in the window are permanently down. The only indication that there is life inside is the “open/closed” board on the door is turned around every morning and evening at opening and closing times.
• I have walked (or bussed) past this shop thousands of times in the last 10 years - and I have NEVER seen any customers walking in or out of it - EVER.
• Over 90% of the local population is of Indian/Asian origin - and the current generations are largely quite modest-in-public people - so the location of this shop here in Kingsbury is baffling to say the least. I’ve never seen anybody even browsing the items in the window from the outside. Locals have learned to simply walk on by and not look. (It always makes me laugh when I see, say, a couple of Indian ladies wearing saris and perhaps new to the area - unwittingly walk up to the window whilst chatting away to each other - and then suddenly realising what kind of shop it is - and backing off in shock and embarassment!)

I have always wanted to walk right in and simply enquire about all these things - but either never really had to bottle to do it - or else it’s actually not been open when I’ve walked past it. Last year sometime - the shop had a fresh coating of it’s distinctive red paint - and I noticed that an Internet website address has been painted on it. The website reveals that exotic lingerie is just one of several product lines sold by this shop - in what I would call “adjacent” markets. It also has another branch in Ealing.

Perhaps this “shop” is actually conducting most of its business by mail order catalogue and online - meaning that the shop itself is simply a small warehouse for the items on sale? The guy who cuts my hair at the barbershop on the High Street is always joking on to me about Cherry Pye Boutique: he thinks that there are illicit things that go on in the flat above the shop - but I personally cannot imagine what. It’s impossible to tell anyway - because the flat above the shop has heavy lace netting behind the curtains - so it’s kind of hard to see inside - even from the top deck of the bus.