Virgin, various locations

Although WeAreLondon is, in general terms, ideologically opposed to the Virgin brand and anything related to that grinning monkey-man Richard Branson, their two central London stores aren't bad.

Virgin Piccadilly is the newer of the two, but caters mainly for tourists. They also give a frustratingly large amount of shelf space to f'ing v-mobile (v-shit).

The downstairs dance and singles bit is OK and while the listening facilities are good, the 3 record decks that sit raised on a plinth and hidden from the view of staff is just asking for trouble. They are mainly used by 13 year old German's practising their scratching skillz, and are consequently mostly out of order.

One nice thing about the store is the comfy chairs and magazines which you can sit and read. WeAreLondon tends to use their listening facilities, read their magazines, then fuck off and spend our money in the indie shops.

The newly revamped "flagship" store on the junction of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road is indeed massive and well stocked (it always amazes us just how many copies of each single they buy in, and equally, that there are that many people in London prepared to exchange real money for DJ Otzi CDs) and begrudgingly, we have to praise it.

The new design is bold and sleek, while the new layout is spacious in the extreme. They've taken out the stage where bands used to do in-store gigs, perhaps indicating that they'll be less of these in the future, but they've re-introduced A-Z back catalogue 7"s - fantastic! There's also improved listening facilities and 6 decks to sample vinyl. We like. We don't like: v.mobile, v.holidays and the instore Virgin Radio. Or Virgin Trains.

Who shops here? Quite a broad cross-section of tourists, those comforted by the reassuring Virgin logo, people wandering the streets at 11pm who are passing the time or "coming in from the cold".
When? Mon-Sat 9am-midnight, Sun 11am-5pm
Where? 219 Piccadilly W1, 14-16 Oxford Street W1 (020 76311234)

Photo shows the decks at the Virgin Piccadilly store, on a rare day when they were mostly working and there were no German tourists "checking out" Eminem's latest.