In September 1983 I arrived at Stirling to seek out somewhere to live before I took up a job at the University. I had been to Scotland once before, but that was a rugby weekend, and memories even then were scanty or embargoed, to say the least. I almost got killed by a Co-op milk lorry in West Wales on the way back, but that’s another tale, though it explains my aversion to the Co-op for a decade or so.   Six months or so after arriving in Stirling we got married and ended up in St. Ninians and have never really moved away. At the time I had six months on my contract so never imagine ..read more

In the short time I had in Singapore this January, we decided to continue to seek out the old amongst the new. It was, as I noted last year in my piece on shophouses good to see pockets of old Singapore being preserved (and valued). Shophouses again featured on my list of things to look for, and I remain fascinated by the tiles and tiling. Whilst I was too late/disorganised to book a tour of the NUS Baba House, and so missed out on seeing inside it, the area around (Blair Plain) was a delight to wonder and to look at what survives. It was interesting to see a few sites being redeveloped, but ..read more

As I think I have mentioned, I was away in January, mainly in Cambodia, but also in Singapore. Since I have been back it has been a little hectic and so some posts reflecting on aspects of my time away have been a little delayed. In Cambodia we were based in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, and no that is not going to mean lots of temple photos in this blog (though I do have a lot of them). My focus here is on the markets we visited and saw and the roles they play. In Phnom Penh the 1930s (though renovated later) Central Market was a fabulous space, reminiscent in its dome of the Pantheon in Rome. T ..read more

Early January 2024 marked 15 years from the collapse of Woolworths in the UK and the closure of its 807 mainly high street stores. There are several potential parents of the phrase ‘death of the high street’, spanning many decades, but for many the failure of the iconic Woolworths is the true signifier of retail change/high street collapse (depending on your view). On the 10th anniversary of the failure I wrote a piece on this blog about the collapse and the aftermath. I drew heavily on the work of the expert in this field Graham Soult (@soult) and his report on the fate of the store ..read more

It’s that time of year again. The blog is another year older, but certainly not any wiser. At this point I normally reflect on the visitor activity on the blog during the year – and this year is going to be no different.   In terms of volume of visitors, the blog has attracted almost the same level as last year (within one percent of last year’s total), making it the fourth highest year since it started. Thanks to all those that visited.   The main measure of activity I have used previously has been the top10 or so posts in the year. As always there is an interesting mixtu ..read more

Read article here Retailing has been going through a challenging time in the last three or four years. The restrictions and disruption of Covid have given way to an extreme cost-of-living crisis and an almost apocalyptic sense of uncertainty on a geo-political level. The end of days in so many ways. Retailers are struggling with everyday trade and making ends meet due to ever rising costs of doing business and consumers less willing to spend and looking either for a bargain or to cut their spending. This is obviously a generalisation and some consumers and some retailers are doing fine, but ma ..read more

A few weeks ago, an announcement by Booths (the north west of England supermarket chain) sparked a lot of media interest and column inches. They had decided to remove self-checkouts from all bar two of their stores. Was this the beginning of the end for this technological development?  The media coverage was considerable, if a little confused. As ever the tendency to polarise an issue meant many missed the fact that Booths are keeping self-checkouts in a couple of stores. Instead the focus was on the removal not the retention – though to be fair, it was a larger number going, than staying ..read more

Listen HERE A couple of months ago I sat down with Ariane Burgess MSP and Kimberley Guthrie to chat about town centre regeneration – well, we virtually sat down as we were in three different locations. Ariane is a Scottish Greens MSP who runs a podcast entitle Regenerative Scotland and she had invited us to talk about town centres in Scotland, their state, progress and what else is needed. Kimberley is the interim CEO of Scotland’s Towns Partnership. This was the second podcast on this topic that Ariane was doing at that time, with the first being with Scott Mackay (Midsteeple Quarter) and Mal ..read more

Due to University commitments I was unfortunately unable to attend the Scottish Parliament Cross-Party Group on Independent Convenience Stores Tuesday evening. The technological advances in hybrid meetings however meant I was able to present online. I was delighted to accept and talk about the SGF Local Shop Report 2023 and place it in a broader context. The overheads for my presentation are available for download below. sgf-cpg-november-2023Download The last seven years have been a shocking time; three huge exogenous shocks have hit the sector – Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine War. These h ..read more

As many people know from Twitter (and this blog) I try to grow some vegetables. I do this both for the crop (taste, variety) but also for the enjoyment it gives me. About this time of the year, most harvesting is done, so I offer a reflection on the year (2020, 2021, 2022 for example).  I found it to be very a strange but ultimately pretty reasonable year. Following previous years, I added garlic, onions and more carrots and peas to the mix and removed the aubergines. I experimented in keeping my tomato seed.  The year began well with a pretty rapid and solid germination of a range o ..read more