[Oboogie]

The media keep referring to it as a popular pub, but if it was so popular why did the previous owners decide to sell it.

Dozens of pubs have closed in my area in the last couple of years with many of them either becoming shops or being demolished and replaced by owners. Every time it happens lots of people make a big fuss about it saying how it is a big loss to the community yet if some of these people had actually frequented the pub when it was open then perhaps it would not have ended up being deemed uneconomic.

Likewise Wilko and our local Odeon. It's not complicated, these places are all businesses, their sole purpose is to make a profit for their owners, if that becomes impossible, they close.

[Andy McDandy]

As ever, I'd point to "The High Street Through Time", BBC, a few years ago. Shepton Mallett high street serves as a test bed, with shopkeepers running old-timey shops and aiming to turn a profit while mastering old fashioned ways. Each week the high street advanced to a new decade. At the start everyone loved the butcher, baker, candlestick maker and so on. Then when they got to the 70s, the grocer was upgraded to a supermarket, and everyone else went out of business. Cue lots of moaning about what a shame it was, until Greg Wallace pointed out that nobody forced people to use the supermarket over the artisan shops.

Pubs have the nostalgia factor, combined with, in this case, the media playing to its core audience - the sort of people who go to pubs. Plus their usual thing of acting like a 14 year old kid who's just discovered tits and beer.

[Oboogie]

As ever, I'd point to "The High Street Through Time", BBC, a few years ago. Shepton Mallett high street serves as a test bed, with shopkeepers running old-timey shops and aiming to turn a profit while mastering old fashioned ways. Each week the high street advanced to a new decade. At the start everyone loved the butcher, baker, candlestick maker and so on. Then when they got to the 70s, the grocer was upgraded to a supermarket, and everyone else went out of business. Cue lots of moaning about what a shame it was, until Greg Wallace pointed out that nobody forced people to use the supermarket over the artisan shops.

Pubs have the nostalgia factor, combined with, in this case, the media playing to its core audience - the sort of people who go to pubs. Plus their usual thing of acting like a 14 year old kid who's just discovered tits and beer.

Yes, we watched that, it was a little simplistic, but it made it's point well.

I recall when Woolworths closed a wave of nostalgic mourning swept through the college I worked in. My response was always the same, "Do you buy much there?" "Oh no, I've not been there for years!".
Anecdotally, I recall my last visit to Woolworths which was my first for at least 20 years. Christmas Eve 2003 we ran out of wrapping paper and I was dispatched to score some more. Mid-morning Durham city centre was heaving - all except Woolies which had blissfully few customers. It's pretty obvious that a retailer who's quiet on Christmas Eve isn't long for this world.

[Crabcakes]

I had a friend lamenting about the dwindling number of ‘proper’ Argos stores today, seemingly oblivious to the fact that in the space year 2023 all it is is a drastically more limited, often more expensive Amazon, whose sole ‘benefit’ is that sometimes you can pick something up the same day.

[Boiler]

Send them to Peterborough - there's a bloody huge out of town one here.

[Spoonman]

I had a friend lamenting about the dwindling number of ‘proper’ Argos stores today, seemingly oblivious to the fact that in the space year 2023 all it is is a drastically more limited, often more expensive Amazon, whose sole ‘benefit’ is that sometimes you can pick something up the same day.

They closed their Rep. Ireland operations back in June. Granted, its Irish arm didn't seem to get much attention after Sainsburys bought them & Brexit certainly didn't help matters, but they didn't seem to be doing very much in their stores in the last couple of years from what I heard. Being able to nip into it to buy the occasional odds & ends isn't enough to keep it afloat.

They actually have a big store in a retail park in my local town that was big enough to open as an Agros Extra when it first arrived in the late 90's, with a significant amount of floor space & in placed a boot up the behinds of some other local shops. Fast forward two decades later, and much of that shop space is now just lying empty, no more jewellery on display or telly's on the walls etc. Though there appears to be a great big stocking area behind the tills, I do wonder just what stock gets held there as any time I'm looking for a local stock check online it's either unavailable to either collect or for home deliverly, or you have to wait a fair few days if you're lucky. A bit sad really, but it's no wonder the likes of Amazon are able to tear them a new hole in that regard. I guess the two main reasons it's still open is (a) a very favourable long term lease, and (b) the nearest Sainsbury's is nearly 30 miles away.