Off The Shelf

"If the retail sector is ever to be investable again, it has to be given the chance to grow." - Mark Burlton, Cross Border Retail "Some of these large retailers are, frankly, facing imminent death from the mortal wounds inflicted by the pandemic." - Chris Keen, CFO LloydsPharmacy --- My family are often shocked by the deeply inappropriate metaphors I sometimes draw from history to describe real world problems. Natural disasters, wartime events. But it would be quite a job to ransack the arena of human history to find a metaphor distasteful enough to describe what's about to happen in retail. 'Ticking time bomb' has already become a cliche (and in any case, that 'bomb' exploded at the start of the pandemic). What we are seeing now are the foreshocks of a major earthquake which will reshape the retail landscape forever. And the faultline about to slip is between retail landlords and tenants. Tensions between physical retail and landlords have been ...

I recently wrote a piece for The Bookseller about bookshops learning to overcome their technophobia. But really 'technophobia' is a proxy - and, on reflection, perhaps a disrespectful one - for change . I say disrespectful, because many booksellers are extremely tech-savvy and many have been trading heroically through the lockdown. I visited my local bookshop Mostly Books yesterday (to be clear, remaining socially distanced, and by prior appointment) and witnessed an impressive operation of online and phone ordering, home deliveries, and perspex screens in anticipation for a phased re-opening beginning in June. But the grim reality is that - as shops re-open - it is going to be a world of perspex screens, masks, gloves and remote contact. In other words, anything but the personalised, one-to-one independent bookselling experience that most entrepreneurs got into bookselling for. And that's before we even consider bookshops that major as destinations, with cafes and ...

" Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better. " - Ray Bradbury BBC News website front page graphic: April 6th, 2020 Szeming Sze was born in China in 1908, and became a doctor. His father was Chinese Minister to Great Britain. So whilst resident in the country, Dad took the opportunity to install the young Szeming at Winchester College, and from there he went on to study medicine at Cambridge. " To understand the man " said Napoleon " you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty. ". And for twenty year-old Dr Sze that meant treating patients at St Thomas's Hospital in London. St Thomas' is a hospital with an intriguing history. Built originally in Southwark, it was founded to provide treatment for the poor, sick, and homeless long before the NHS was founded. When it reloca...