The Recession Bites

[poliphilo]

My mother gave us Marks and Spencer's vouchers for Christmas- it's a tradition- and yesterday afternoon we set out to spend them. We thought of buying our week's shopping there, but the prices were sooo expensive we changed our minds and limited ourselves to a few treats- then drove to Sainsbury's to lay in the basics.

Ailz is on the phone discussing it with her mother. "£21 for a leg of lamb!" she says.

And this morning we hear M & S are shutting 25 of their "Just Food" stores and cutting 1,250 staff following the worst Christmas performance ever. After yesterday I'm not surprised.

At least they're only retrenching. Yesterday was the final day of trading for the British Woolworths. Cue sad footage of high street stores being stripped of their fittings and Woolies employees in their cheery, red tabards standing around on the snowy pavement, putting a brave face on it.

And what about Waterford-Wedgewood? Wedgewood can't go bust. It's one of the pillars of eternity. Where would we be without our jasperware?

But in the present economic climate, nothing should be taken for granted.

Which brings us to yesterday's LJ panic. That too- I fully believe- was also only a retrenchment. What we- and by we I mean us Westerners- forget is just how big LJ is in Russia. According to Wikipedia, Zhe-zhe, LJ's Russian name, is also the generic word for blog.   For Russians, LJ isn't just one platform among many,  it is the blogosphere- and therefore a highly valuable, cultural property. Even if the current owners wanted to get rid of it, I think there would be others eager to pick it up. 

So I'm not waving my arms around or moving elsewhere. I'm being optimistic or stoical or zen. And if the bulldozers come, they come. 

Comments

[brttvns.livejournal.com]

The Woolworths in my hometown closed on the 2nd. It was adjacent my local boozer. On the 3rd we were watching a crew ripping out what was left of the fittings, fortunately the were being supervised by the store's erstwhile manager. I say 'forunately' because even though it was public knowledge that the store had closed one dear old lady came and knocked on the door to return an item of clothing (to great amusement to all in the bar). To give the manager his due he did manage to exchange the item (I suppose they still had some stock upstairs, as the shop floor was gutted!).

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

Yesterday's LJ panic? I was here just about all day. How did I miss this?

[mummm.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the LJ thing!

Robert told me about Waterford-Wedgewood yesterday. That's a bit unbelievable!

Why are these places not just cutting back their prices a bit?

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Although I am not going to Insane Journal, I am collecting LJ friends' email addresses, just in case, so we wont lose touch completely.
I am also in the process of taking off most of my posts (not the photos and not the memes) and saving them on a memory stick, just as I did with my msjann65 entries when I closed that journal last year.
I really hope that you are right about this. I so look forward to logging on to LJ each morning when I have my coffee.
I would miss you, and others on my F-list.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

Um: what LJ panic? Oh, dear!

Last night on our local news we were told that Alcoa, a major plant worldwide but with a big presence in a nearby town (named Alcoa) is laying off 13,000 workers, 450 of them local people; that Goodies, a clothing store based in Knoxville, is liquidating and will be laying off 1,500 workers; and that a local seaboat building company is laying off much of its staff.

We are reeling locally, but this is going on everywhere.

I have heard, and believe it, that after all this is over only the biggest strongest stores will remain--the Walmarts of this world.

[wyrmwwd.livejournal.com]

Zen is good.

[richenda.livejournal.com]

I hope that they don't shut the Bangor M and S Simply Food, which has only been open for about a year. On 23rd December it was packed with customers, and most of the shelves were empty.
For the rest of the year, it's the only food shop near the bus station, so is a real blessing if the Llandudno branch is out of something, or if a Bangor resident hasn't time to get to Tesco and back. Besides, although M and s isn't cheap, some of their stock is better than the tesco equivalent
The silliest thing they did was to switch their weekend closing time from 8 p,m, to 5 p.m so they've lost trade from the National Express arrival at 7.30. I suppose that the cost of staying open for two hours wasn't met, even by the droves of students arriving on that coach - except that where's the point of opening a shop in a bus station if you aren't open for coach arrivals?