LONDON LIFES 10
BRENT CROSS

Brent Cross is a security guard at the Brent Cross Shopping Centre. He is 37 years old and was born in Wellington, New Zealand.

I suppose it was inevitable that I would end up working at Brent Cross. I was born to Mr and Mrs Peter Cross, in New Zealand in 1970, two British hippies who washed up on the South Island in the 60’s. They named me Brent, but it wasn’t until I came to Wembley to live in a cereal box with three other kiwis that I even knew there was a place called Brent Cross. I called up my Dad and I said “Dad, did you know there was a big shopping centre in London called Brent Cross?” and he just cracked up. I suppose they were having a joke at my expense right from the start. You have to admire their patience. My Mum and Dad, they were playing a looooong game.

And then one day, I saw an advert – “Brent Cross. Security Guard Wanted.” Now, I never wanted to be a security guard, but I like reading and figured I could probably take a book to work, and it was like that little card was calling me, by name. When I arrived for my first day at Brent Cross I had a uniform and a name badge saying “Brent Cross. Brent Cross.” One day, one of the old guys said, “I’ve been coming into Brent Cross every day for thirty years and I’m sick of it” and everyone pointed at me and laughed. The other guys in the flat – Daveo, Keitho and Steveo - kept pinning up healdines from London papers on the fridge door – “Brent Cross to be refurbished”, “£50 000 spent on Brent Cross’ toilets”, “Brent Cross to be extended into inverted T shape” – and such like, and they’d laugh, too. Who cares? You need something to distract you. Brent Cross is Hell.

There isn’t a bookshop in the Brent Cross shopping centre? Does that strike you as wierd? Sure there’s a WH Smiths, selling drawing pins and chic lit, but there isn’t an actual bookshop, selling actual books. One time this girl in specs and an alice band said to me, “My boyfriend’s browsing in an electrical shop. I want to kill time. Where’s the bookshop?” And I said ‘There isn’t one, dude. Isn’t that amazing?” And we ended up getting it on in a service elevator while he looked at I-pods.

No bookshop. And on Boxing Day 5000 people rioted over clothes at Next. Can you imagine there being a riot over books at Foyles or Blackwells? No. Who are these people that shop here? Brent Cross’ marketing slogan is ‘Feed Your Addiction”. Brent Cross got what it deserved. Consumer-junkies fighting each other for .... stuff. It’s just stuff, dude.

Last week a guy tripped over a marble stone border surrounding a coffee outlet on Level 1, and I was called because he’d started shouting at it, calling it names, and threatening it. He didn’t want his girlfriend to see him beaten by a step. People that shop here are the kind of people that pick fights with stone. “No inanimate object is going to make me look like an idiot.” That’s why there’s no need for a bookshop here. It’s like hell.

Once, when I was a kid, I walking along the beach, I saw three dolphins just offshore, so I stripped off and ran into the sea, and they raced alongside me for what seemed like hours, even though it was only a few minutes. I think I have to leave London, and go home. There isn’t even a bookshop in the Brent Cross Shopping Centre. Come on! What’s that all about?

Brent Cross was talking to Stewart Lee