Picnic at the Proms

When I last visited Harrods, the huge department store in Knightsbridge, Lady Diana was still alive and many years were to come until she started her last relationship with Dodi Al Fayed.

Today, after they both died in a car crash in Paris, his father, the owner of Harrods, has added some quite cheesy rooms and memorials to the building. There is an Egyptian Hall and an Egytian Escalator. At its base there is the Di and Dodi fountain shrine. In an acrylic pyramid the visitors can see a used wine-glas from the couple's last evening and the engagement ring Dodi allegedly bought for Di the previous day.

Harrods is crowded with tourists and - adding the horrendous prices - it isn't fun to shop or eat there at all. But I guess the Food Hall with its Arts and Crafts tiling is still a must-see in London.

I very much liked the opera singer singing on a balcony of the Egyptian Escalator and a singing pizza chef. The main reason for me being there was the afternoon performance of Wagner's The Mastersingers of Nuremberg in the Royal Albert Hall as part of the Proms 2010.

By chance I got to know that the 4pm performance was supposed to end at 10.15pm. So I got myself a picnic from Harrods and was pretty right to do so. In the so called dinner break everybody headed outside to sit on the steps of the Albert Memorial and the lawn to have a picnic.

Whereas I had bought the second last seat for the performance, some 600 people got themselves a so called day ticket and had to stand for nearly five hours in the Arena - just after having had queued some hours in front of the hall.