If ever proof was needed that I am a North London boy, it's this:

According to Sarah Vine:
The General Trading Company is - or was - to nice middle-class girls like me what the Liverpool branch of Selfridges is to WAGs: the centre of the shopping universe. All those marvellous (and completely useless) leather pigs, splendid ethnic lamps, exotic rugs, stylish retro toys and interesting vases. The thing is, until I opened my Times this morning and read the above, I had never heard of the General Trading Company.

This place, on the other hand...