Darts Farm Shopping Village

This is one of those sort of 'concept' shopping experiences, just like something from middle America. I don't know whether I love it or hate it.

For one thing, there are simply too many bloody people in the place; all of these retired, affluent middle-aged people with nothing better to do than spend more and more time perfecting their already perfect homes. All at a price, too.

The prices are ludicrous: £1.69 for a 100g chocolate bar, sold to mugs who think they're gaining added value or something (the stuff is probably lower quality than an 80p Galaxy bar). And the bar is wrapped in cheap, blue paper and in a stupid, long, narrow shape (about 10 inches long). Everthing here is expensive.

Darts Farm tries to be too many things: garden centre, supermarket, DIY, clothes shop, furniture shop and other things, all under one roof. You can buy a trampoline, pub-style table soccer games, sofas, and Exmoor organic beef. And an aquarium and a new tree or shrub, should you need one.

It is a large, flat building, with just one floor, built on a slight incline that leads up to Clyst St George. Below is the meandering River Clyst, close to where it meets the River Exe, just the other side of Topsham. The Clyst is the border between Exeter and East Devon, placing Darts Farm in the latter, close to Ebford. Curiously, I always thought the Clyst was the Exe until I took the trouble to look at a map one day; it is, however, a large, significant tributary, probably the largest river to join with the Exe at any point in its sixty mile existence.

The upper part of the building is entirely new and impressive, with angled steel roof girders sloping down, covering stone-tiled floors and stuff, all enclosed by large, floor-to-roof plate windows. It's the sort of place you'd expect in Alaska. On the other hand, it's just an upmarket version of Mole Avon and Trago Mills, thrown together and marketed to richer people.

The Fired Earth shop is just full of yet more over-priced yet high quality stuff, armchairs, tables, cooking things and a lot more. They are sell those Arga cookers, the type that run on coal and take up half the kitchen.

The restaurant is fine except it's too busy and too noisy. You can hear the din of two hundred grannies and pensioners chatting away and eating. The whole thing requires about twenty waiters by the look of it, too. I would estimate at least twenty minutes to order something as simple as a coffee, so what's the point?

And then there's the modern, pathetic obsession with endless choices. If you order a coffee you must choose from about ten different types: latte, cappucino, espresso and all the rest. Why the fuck can't you just order a cheap, ordinary cup of instant coffee? It must all be about money, charging £2 for a coffee (the bloody machine costs £400 I imagine).