Ballad of a Thin Man

9 Responses to Ballad of a Thin Man

1. asquith says:

   December 28, 2008 at 2:20 pm

   The high street is certainly not going down without a fight. There have been more than enough takers for business as usual over the last few days, helped along by Brown’s feeble-minded decision to encourage us to repeat the debt-fuelled spending of the past 11 years, & also by aggressive discounts.
   Maybe it is just the last lashing out of a dying beast. But don’t reckon on that world ending just yet!

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2. mike says:

   December 28, 2008 at 5:09 pm

   I’m 66, retired insurance agent. We are known as silver surfers, daft name and incorrect, I bald. My age group, now in the twilight of our lives were brought up on computers. This week I purchased all the groceries online. The sales, I was there too, purchased 6 shirts, proper price 35 quid a throw, I got the lot including postage for 63 quid, and never had to go out of the house. Woolies, not been in a Woolies for 30 years, why would I. Now I’m the age group that once used them, they stopped being any use to us a long, long time ago. The high street shops are doomed, heck if 66 year old fogies don’t use them, who will. Newspapers and mags will go the same way as the shops,I read a dozen papers a day, a mag or two a week and they’re free, all free, and when I’m done reading I just have to turn them off. The fact is soon all will be doing most things from their laptops,the real old folk who find computers a threat will be dead. That just leaves those who don’t want a Woolies, don’t need a local shop, a library or a post office. Don’t need a postal service anymore, can’t remember the last time I went into a bank, or wrote a cheque. We older persons are changing the quickest, we aren’t mourning the passing of a shop for heavens sake ! Get a grip folks the future is bright, the future is being a 100 year old vegetable, being kept alive by modern medicine, and politicians who are frightened to say too old, for gods sake pull the plug.

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3. Linda says:

   December 28, 2008 at 7:03 pm

   Fashion shops have got a fighting chance of surviving. Most women love to shop for clothes and would not be satisfied with only mail order. Part of the pleasure is trying on different items.
   Specialist goods suppliers should have a decent chance too.
   Shopping is a social activity – so there’s hope yet.
   Sh

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4. Letters From A Tory says:

   December 29, 2008 at 9:26 am

   You mean, Tom Watson and every other Labour MP is PRAYING that the demise of Woolies is part of a much bigger global redesign of consumer capitalism!

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5. Bob says:

   December 29, 2008 at 9:51 am

   How very sweet of you to tell me what I mean.

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6. John Lilburne says:

   December 29, 2008 at 5:30 pm

   So the boy Tom thinks it’s a “global redesign of consumer capitalism”. From where I’m sitting it looks like a couple of decades of unregulated theft and swindle have finally come to their logical conclusion. Still, the NuLab kids have to at least try and put a shiny spin on these things, eh?
   I also cracked up at this on Tom’s blog: “When my son is a teenager, his friends will arrange to meet online and share their music tastes before pressing the ‘buy’ button”. Er, I hope Tom’s mate Andy Burham doesn’t read Tom’s blog because he wants to “regulate” the Internet and file-sharing kids will be among the first to suffer. It’s also amusing that regulation seems to be coming back into fashion after years of unfettered capitalism.
   By the way, Ian Hislop and Noddy Holder held the most enlightening discussion (4min 15sec in) of the so-called credit crunch on HIGNFY last week. Far more convincing than anything I’ve heard from a banker or a poli.

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7. Bob says:

   December 29, 2008 at 6:38 pm

   John, you’ve got a stronger stomach than me. I can tolerate Noddy as a genuine satarist, but Hislop is just a twerp who has dragged down Ingram’s fine organ and turned it into a comic. He has one of those Bullingdon faces that make me vomit!
   As for Burnham… just another Blair-lite New Labour careerist. If you didn’t know, and had to guess, you would say “Tory” without having to think twice.
   Anyway, don’t castigate Tom for the “global redesign” nonsense…. that was my phrase, not his!
   Happy New Year, John… and it won’t be long til we get those ashes back!

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8. John Lilburne says:

   January 2, 2009 at 3:08 pm

   I don’t mind Hislop and his recent TV documentaries are pretty good viewing. I’m not so sure that PE was any better in Ingrams’ day as the same jokes are still running in 2009
   And a happy new year to you and the family.

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9. John Lilburne says:

   January 5, 2009 at 5:20 am

   Re: The Ashes. I’m afraid I won’t be watching as overseas matches are only shown on pay TV down here and I refuse to cough up for the Murdoch Yoke. I’ll follow it on OBO on the Graun site; not quite the same but often amusing.

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