Hot off the presses, here are a few news bites with extremely poor timing, weatherwise.
Harrods has opened its annual Christmas store. Repeat: the Christmas store at Harrods is now open. In August. Not even mid-August. Early August. Five months before Christmas and presumably six months before it reopens for Christmas 2025. Just try saying you were too busy to put up Christmas decorations now.
Have you booked your Christmas party yet and why not? Because it's August and you have trouble planning what to have for lunch today, much less what you want to be doing in five (5!) months' time? Because you like living on the edge? Because you didn't think it was even possible? All valid answers, but Colonel Saab cares for none of them. The Indian restaurant group is the winner of this year's Thatsup London Award for the Earliest Xmas Booking Email to Land in Our Inbox. Congratulations? Honourable mentions go out to Thirty7 and Gauthier Soho.
Starbucks is offering its popular Pumpkin Spice Latte at select locations. It used to be a reliable sign to pack up your short shorts, wrap yourself up in layers of tastefully beige knitwear, and journal about autumnal colours, but with the coffee chain's Pumpkin Spice Latte landing in, again, early August, who even knows what's going on anymore. Definitely not the poor pumpkins who must've thought they had at least a month to go before they had to get their patch body in shape, but were in for a rude awakening. On the other hand, if you like doing your Christmas shopping with a nice warming drink in hand, well, aren't you in luck.
Now please excuse us as we go drink iced lattes, lick our way through seven tubs of the best ice cream in London, and finally dump a bucket of ice over our head like its 2014. If you're looking to cool off yourself, might we suggest going for a swim, finding a nice shady forest glade, or giving up and going full Christmas with a visit to an ice rink?