The BHS Collapse Turns Nasty
The top story on the BBC web site today is entitled BHS collapse: Sir Philip Green demands ‘biased’ MP Frank Field resigns.
I don’t think I would get on well with either Sir Philip Green or Frank Field, but as I don’t have to, it’s very much irrelevant.
Reading Green’s Wikipedia entry, says to me that we have too many differences and a friend once had a serious difference of opinion with Field, which makes me feel that I wouldn’t get on with him either.
My personal view on BHS was expressed in How Many Shoppers Will Mourn The Death of BHS?
I think for a start, it has to be asked, how BHS got into the sorry state they were before the collapse!
I shall be taking strong interest in when Green and Field meet next week.
If the meeting ever takes place!
The London Office Crane Survey
I liked this survey from Deloitte!
They’re Not So Silly In Suffolk
I once had a letter published in The Times after C died, in which I praised the joined up thinking, between the Registrars and the Council, which got me a virtually automatic Council Tax reduction.
Have you ever wondered what happened to all those businesses, that were displaced by the Olympics in Stratford?
Quite a few ended up in Haverhill, as St. Edmundsbury Council thought that would be a good place to relocate and they had the sites available. So the Council achieved the highest rate of inward investment of any Council in England in 2012, by some intelligent marketing of the businesses to be displaced. One unlikely story, I heard, was that someone from the Council walked around and knocked on doors!
BBC Breakfast was joking this morning that Bury St. Edmunds-based brewer, Greene King have an export boom to China after David Cameron took the Chinese leader to the local pub and gave him a pint of Greene King IPA.
It’s all reported in this article in the Guardian, entitled Greene King strikes gold as Chinese demand soars after Xi Jinping pint.
Another Reason For Not Shopping At Tesco
In a few minutes time, I’m off to a lecture at the London Geological Society on Piccadilly.
I shall take a 38 bus all the way, as it stops virtually outside my house and the Society.
But I will leave myself plenty of time, as it is the time of day, when Tesco always seem to park their truck outside their convenience, or in this case inconvenience, store at Islington Green, which usually manages to delay the traffic by fifteen minutes or so.
I don’t deal with arrogant businesses like that!
No wonder the company, is a ripe one for breaking up by the vultures of the City!
Premier Foods
Because of the reports like this one on the BBC, I have just crossed Premier Foods off my list of preferred suppliers for my kitchen.
I didn’t like Marmite anyway!
Who’d Be A Clothes Retailer?
According to the Daily Mail, winter clothes aren’t selling as it’s still warm. Here’s the first paragraph.
Indian summer hits M&S and Next clothes sales: Stores unable to shift winter boots and coats because of warm October temperatures.
It doesn’t bother me, as I wear almost the same clothes all year round. I’m always in a short-sleeved shirt, with or without a cashmere jumper from M & S. I do swap cords for chinos if it gets too hot, but I rarely wear shorts. And for nearly eight months now, I’ve worn the same lightweight bomber jacket, as it keeps me dry and has the right format of pockets.
If I’m going somewhere smart, I might wear a 25-year-old sports jacket, which is so unstylish that it gets admired all the time. I wore it at CERN.
I am finding that I’m spending less and less money on clothes. I did think that I might get some new expensive Daks cords for the winter, but when I went to try them on, I found that trendy designers had ruined the design. The fastenings were so complicated, if you had got taken short, you wouldn’t have been able to get your trousers down quick enough. So I decided to buy another pair from M & S.
Because of this inability to buy clothes, I now tend to be ruthless in taking unwanted ones to Oxfam and then buy a replacement in probably M & S.
The only thing I spend money on are belts and bags. I’m still searching for a perfect one of the latter. The trouble is they’re not designed by real people.
Is Vince Cable Pitching For Luddite Of The Year?
I’ve just heard Vince Cable on the radio saying that he will endeavour to get Lloyds to not close the last branch in a town.
I’ve afraid traditional banking is dead. For most people and companies, cheques are no more, branches have no purpose and everything is on the Internet.
If people don’t want to go that way, then I suspect that someone will accommodate them At a price!
People always go on about how would small shops bank their cash. Here in London, they banned cash on buses and although the usual Luddites had their say, nobody seems to bother now!
Praise For Marks And Spencer In An Unlikely Place
Marks and Spencer may not be in the best of health these days, with even their boss saying the results aren’t good enough in this report on the BBC.
He might like this story.
I have a small waist, which needs a thirty-inch-belt. They are hard to find and for the last ten years or so, I’ve always bought them from Paul Smith. Usually at their flagship store in Covent Garden.
Yesterday, I went to get a new one and I found a nice one in brown. I got to talking to the stylish assistant, who came from Bordeaux. He felt I was wearing a very nice pair of chinos.
They were only from Marks and Spencer.
I did buy one of the three pairs I have in a store, but the others were from their web site and delivered to my local store at the Angel.
Their web site worked for me!
A Disastrous Year
Not my words, but those of the the Chief Executive of the Co-Operative Group, Richard Pennycock, as reported on the BBC after the groups £2.5billion loss. He went on to add this.
These results should serve as a wake-up call to anyone who doubts just how serious the challenges we face are.
“The scale of this disaster will rightly shock our members, our customers and our colleagues,
The Co-Operative Group of 2015, will be a totally different organisation to what it is now! If it still exists! \which I seriously doubt!
There is one truism in any business that always applies. Unless you are totally professional in all things, then your venture will not succeed, as those that stick to professional principles will put you out of business.
The Anonymous Widower 