Eejits in Belfast

Having worked in retail I know that today should have been the second busiest day in retailers' year. Only next Saturday the last before Christmas will see higher footfall and turnover.

However, with tensions already heightened and many people avoiding Belfast City Centre, with the ongoing uncertainty about protests about the flag, we now have a bob alert phoned into Castle Court. The biggest retail mall in the City Centre on one of the busiest retail streets. Surronding businesses already affected last Saturday by the flags protest keeping people out of the city centre are seeing more people driven out of from a police cordon around Castle Court.

Northern Ireland people being what they are, will suspect there may be another device somewhere in the City Centre to others may be deserting other retailers even though there is no immediate threat.

So for the second Saturday in a row Belfast retailers will be seeing takings down. Saturdays in December are often what allow shops to keep going in tough financial times. But losing out on two of these in Belfast there may be more empty shops in the city centre early next year because this ongoing stupidity. This bomb threat has not been linked to the flags protests, but with tensions already high it certainly isn't helping the local economy.

Update with nothing suspicious found the people who called in this warning are even bigger eejits.

Un croissant in the morning can be quite continental...

... but diamonds are a girl's best friend.

The news this morning that Greggs are to start selling croissants as part of its breakfast range, despite a challenging market conditions, got this song going in my head.



Of course as a former employee of Gerald Ratner I'm musing the fact that if M&S sandwiches lasted longer than some of the Ratner's products, will Greggs next start branching out into the jewellery business. The lose of the local H. Samuel branch here in Bangor indicates that this too is currently a challenging market.

So today as David Cameron makes his closing remarks to the Conservative conference will we hear him say:

"Our country is facing tough financial times. I suggest we look at history. Bretton Woods, the gold standard, the great depression. That is why today I'm instruction Gideon, ... err, I mean the Chancellor to tie sterling to the Gregg's sausage roll standard. One pound will be the equivalent of two of Gregg's finest."

Or then again maybe not.

Nice Cuppa Not Gonna Relieve This Pain

They say that no matter how bad the situation there is nothing better to help you through it than a nice cup of tea. However, I doubt this was the case for the bosses an employees of Whittards who have become the latest High Street victim of the credit crunch as tea is their primary business.

Whittards had been backed by the Icelandic bank Landsbanki and owner by Icelandic investors Baugur. But following the failed Icelandic bank cutting the companies funding lines so Ernst and Young are prepared to step in as administrators for the company who have been the purveyors of fine teas for 122 years.

500 staff across the chains 130 stores will be going home for Christmas tomorrow with one wish; hoping Ernst and Young find an interested party to buy the company. But with Whittards facing a rent bill on Christmas it may be bailiffs and not father Christmas who is taking drinks for the company founded in Chelsea. As Nick Hood predicted the other day as many as 10 chains may be in imminent danger, as many others are owned or financed by Icelandic money it may be worth looking at the states of their financial positions with regards to the immediate future.

Update: Then again it is always hard to resist a fine cup of tea, or for that matter a whole company. Apparently private equity investor Epic have stepped in to buy Whittards apparently in a deal brokered by former Whittards boss Will Hobhouse.

Not So Prosperous a New Year

Whilst us consumers have been enjoying reductions in prices on the run up to Christmas it is a sign according to Nick Hood, a partner at Begbies Traynor, that 10 or more national or regional chains will follow Woolies and MFI to the wall. PricewaterhouseCoopers where showing that 82% of stores were discounting their products on the weekend before Christmas over the last 2 days.

This discounting to move the Christmas stock at what is normally the profit making time for retailers may lead to many struggling to restock in the new year. pay their VAT bills, and survive through to October 2009 when the Christmas selling season kicks off again. January may well be a very gloomy time on the High Streets as traditionally chains have more cash and less stock so creditors are very likely if they don't expect things to improve to force some into administration to at least get some return on their debt, rather than have the issue that Woolworths have of raising as much capital as possible out of their stock before all their stores close on 7 January.

Mr Hood did not name the chains in question but between 10 and 15 he highlights as being in real danger of not surviving very much longer. Sadly having been around in retail in the early 90s and shutting down several stores of the lowest tier of the business I worked in then. I know that often these decisions are taken in retail with very short notice to the shop floor worker. It may well be that they turn up one day and are told that they are to start backing away any remaining stock and may be lucky to get their notice paid up.

Goodbye Woolies

If you were to look very carefully at the back of my shaven head you would see two scars. One of this happened when I was three as I slid down the step outside Woolworths in Bangor as my grandfather was looking after me and my baby (at the time) brother.

Well today Woolworths and MFI (upon how desks and surrounded by whose bookcases I prepared for the 2005 General Election) have both gone into administration. There was talk earlier in the day that the Government would wade in to bail out Woolworths but like an unlucky cricketer the edifice of the UK's High Street has lost its wicket one shy of its century. Now Woolworths 30,000 employees and 20,000 people covered by its pension fund, ,which has a £100m deficit face uncertainty.

Meanwhile MFI who had enjoyed a rent holiday in an attempt to stave off administration have been unable to turn things around and over another 1000 retail employees face redundancy. However, 261 employees were laid off with immediate effect by Galiform, the joinery firm who previously owned the company but are now one of the landlords.

Heinz Ad Cleared By Broadcasting Authority

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) have decided there is no case to be answered by the Heinz Ad for New York Deli Mayo.

In a statement they said:

"The ASA council considered that while some viewers may have personal objections to any portrayal of same sex kissing there was nothing in the content of the advertisement what would constitute a breach of the advertising code."

Answering also answered the query about parents concerns that had to explain homosexuality to children. Something that was less likely as the ad under High Fat, Sugar and Salt (HFSS)Restrictions was deemed ex-kids and therefore not to be shown during children's broadcasting, the ASA said:

"Even if the ad had not been subject to HFSS restrictions, the ASA would still not have investigated it."

People may have any number of personal objections to anything that is on TV. It may be the quality of the programming, the content or any manner of things. However, to invent lies and conditions to try and raise you own personal objections to something that society accepts is wrong, indeed in the UK it can come under hate crimes legislation. If you still object you can always reach for the remote control that probably isn't too far away and switch or turn off, or watch commercial free TV; good old BBC.

Now the big question is what are Heinz going to do about it? They've been apologising for the ad yet there appears to be nothing to apologise for. They have yet to apologise to those who have been offended by their apparent sanctioning of homophobic and anti-gay propoganda spread by the American Family Association. The AFA can only accept if everyone is exactly like them, sound very much like a supremicist movement to me, and very much like the advent of Nazism, if they cannot abide and live beside others of contrasting views.

Sadly this group have a powerful voice over the party that currently conrtols the most powerful elected office in the world. A scarey and sobering thought in this US election year 2008. Here's hoping Barak Obama does win in November and refuses to power to their prejudices.

Heinz Failure to Listen (Or Maybe Just Read)

H.J. Heinz when they initially pulled the New York Deli mayo ad said they listened to their consumers. Well it looks like they can't read then.

Yes the first of the long awaited responses to the fact that they pulled the ad in light of 200 or so complaints from people not valuing the rights of all (another alleged Heinz promise). Yeah Tim Trent got a response which is exactly what Michael Mullen said over here that they "accept that this ad was not in accordance with our long-standing corporate policy of respecting everyone's rights and values."

Now there is much quoted proverb you can please all of the people some or time and some of the people all of the time. Therefore it would appear that Heinz's long-standing corporate policy of respecting everyone's rights and values, no matter how bigoted or how outlawed those values may be.

Still a soup of shame hanging over Heinz. The egg mayo is still very much over their faces with this whole debacle.

Supermarkets, Booze, SNP and the Border

Way back on 18 June over at Jeff's blog he rejected my comment that the SNP price per unit policy would lead to booze drives over the border to England. Something I'd earlier that day covered in more detail here.

Well it appears that the Supermarkets themselves are thinking of ways to circumvent just such a proposal. ASDA chiefs say there is nothing to stop them setting up distribution centres south of the Border so that online Scottish shoppers can pay English prices. That could be worrying for the workers at the supermarkets distribution centres that currently hug the M8 between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

So while the SNP are salivating over the possibility of declaring internet independence by changing Government address from .uk to .sco the same world wide web also is a reminder that the border with Englandshire is only about 70 miles away from our two major cities. So making too radical a change in Scotland can affect commerce, jobs etc by companies merely moving that short hop.

Is M&S Setting Brown's Green Policy?

So that doyen of the High Street Mark and Spencers are setting the green agenda for the Brown Government, or so it seems. After yesterday's announcement that the store will start charging for plastic bags from 6 May it appears that the Prime Minister himself may be hopping unto the band wagon.

Lib Dem MSP Mike Pringle had presented a bill for a plastic bag levy north of the border in the last Scottish Parliament. But he withdrew his bill once some stores took steps towards encouraging reuse, and the executive then urged a voluntary code to take up the cause. However, there had been pressure from the manufacturers of plastic bags on the bill saying that it would effect the economy and jobs in Scotland.

Although as has been pointed out previously on this blog how some of these stores actually encourage this non-existant voluntary code needs major improvement. Sadly only IKEA who have removed single use bags entirely from their stores and now Marks and Spencers appear to be doing all they can to remove the option of free plastic bags from the customers easy reach.

So now the PM is yet again jumping up and down in response giving stores a year to eliminate single use bags from their stores. Although as the quasi-green Tories point out the Government and its agencies have prodused 1.2m such bags promoting themselves in the last 2 years. I'm so glad that years ago Lib Dem Conferences started to produce jute bags for delegate packs, so that we could happily ignore plastic handouts and put the stalls stuff into more environmentally friendly carriers.