I'm a convert to the new pleasuredome

"Have you been to Westfield yet?" asked one of the mothers at the school gate. I hadn't, and in truth I had no intention of visiting Europe's biggest shopping mall since its arrival on our doorstep. In its opening week last month traffic backed up almost to the end of our street in North Kensington, and it's been packed on weekends ever since. "It's awful," proclaimed one American friend.

But then on Tuesday it rained. I'd dropped the children at school and, unable to face the 11 things on my pre-Christmas "to do" list, I thought I'd have a quick look. Out of journalistic curiosity. Just to get a few stocking fillers, nothing big.

Six minutes later I pulled into aisle 18 of its gleaming underground car park with lavender painted columns. Shepherd's Bush's new pleasuredome is nothing like grubby Whiteleys or Brent Cross: it's all expensive terrazzo flooring, cathedral-like spaces and smiley concierges. Alongside smartly dressed OAPs, young mums and Continental tourists - some cooing like they had arrived in a new world - I headed off around the circuit of mammon clutching my map.

"Madam, can I ask you a question?" It was one of those don't-take-no salesmen pushing Israeli cosmetics - are they in every mall in the world? I escaped into the Ugg store where its new boots cost £260. There were lots of people looking but I never quite saw the colour of their credit cards.

Outside, the soft seating areas were filling up with people balancing laptops on their knees - Westfield was now their office, a new London destination to meet and eat.

By midday The Balcony, with its 13 fast-food outlets, was filling up. Lunch from Comptoir Libanais, an organic lentil and rice salad with a pomegranate lemonade (£7.30 and vastly superior to Whole Foods), was eaten on a white marble-topped bar next to an elderly Spanish woman.

It all felt a long way from Manchester's Arndale Centre, my first shopping mall experience as a child in the Seventies. Even the loos were cavernous, with 10-foot-high dark wooden cubicles, quilted loo paper and granite surfaces - though inevitably the lock was already hanging off.

My quick look lasted more than two hours and left me many more pounds worse off. Heading back to the car through The Village, where the luxury brands are, I counted 20 people at the champagne bar, extraordinary for 1.15pm midweek in a recession. Quaffing while Rome, or at least the FTSE, burns.

Debenhams, Next and House of Fraser, three of its anchor stores, hold no attraction for me and it's a great pity John Lewis isn't there. But the truth is - and I hate to admit it - at some stage I'll be back.