Diary doesn’t get invited to the Toronto film festival – we probably couldn’t expense it if we did. So we weren’t part of the lucky few that got an early viewing of Greed, a forthcoming satirical mockumentary starring Steve Coogan as fictional high-street fashion mogul Sir Richard “Greedy” McCreadie, who (according to the Guardian review) has “just suffered a nightmare of bad publicity following a catastrophic performance in front of a parliamentary select committee”.
Sounding familiar? We’ll let the Grauniad continue: “This is, of course, all a caricature of the Topshop supremo Philip Green. McCreadie is played by Steve Coogan with a tan, an open-necked shirt, alpha-male silver-grey hair and emulsion-white teeth.” And one of the movie’s highlights is a montage “imagining all the grisly high-street clothing stores with names like Xcellent” that McCreadie has set up over the years. Diary will certainly be booking tickets when Greed opens here in November.
Main image © Stacey Newman/Shutterstock
Crush that bridge when you come to it
It is the end of an era for Goldman Sachs, as the US investment bank shifts staff from its various old offices to its new London HQ on Farringdon Street. Now the bank has been given the go-ahead for one of the more symbolic actions of the consolidation – tearing down the walkways between River Court and Peterborough Court, its former Fleet Street offices. Staff were able to move between the two via covered bridges crossing Shoe Lane, but the City of London Corporation has rubberstamped plans to demolish them.
Though that’s not easy. The corporation says the “key issue” has been matching the materials to fill in the holes, adding that “weathering of the granite would need to be addressed,” but the aim is to present “a seamless façade”. Farewell from Fleet Street, Goldman – it will be like you were never really there at all.
What’s in your wallet?
Diary’s wife got a new purse for her birthday, and set about the ceremonial act of transferring contents. But a bit of pruning was required. Jamie’s Italian Gold Club card? Out. Cargo Homeshop customer card? Out. Toys R Us gold card? Out. PureHMV points card? Out (the chain may have survived; its loyalty scheme did not). House of Fraser and Debenhams? In (for now).
It made Diary wonder, what is lurking out there in readers’ purses and wallets? Is anyone still carrying their old Blockbuster card? Tweet us your best out-of-date examples you can’t bear to get rid of @estatesgazette #realloyaltycards
Retail, resentment and robots
The effects of the high-street apocalypse haven’t just been felt in Diary’s wife’s purse. Word reaches us this week that “41% of UK retail employees hardly ever look forward to going to work”. Now, when Diary was a Saturday lad in WHSmith, then, itchy jumpers aside, we had a fun time.
But the world has moved on. According to Yoobic, almost half of those on the front line with customers resent being there. It has put together an e‑book guide to how to effectively engage the retail workforce, and Diary is guessing its tips do not include: replace them with robots. In which case, those shopworkers who still do value their jobs should look away now. Australian start-up Niska is launching Australia’s first-ever robotic store in Melbourne, offering artisan ice-cream served by a team of androids: Pepper, Eka and Tony.
“For us, ice-cream is just the beginning,” said chief executive and co-founder Kate Orlova. “We are looking to expand the robotics into other areas of retail. The future is here and it is exciting!” Maybe for Pepper, but her face is built to look that way.
Let an umbrella be your smile
It’s unlucky to open an umbrella indoors, Diary’s nan used to say. Well, a closed brolly can cause its share of misfortune, judging by this tweet from Neeraj K Agrawal.
Cue plenty of helpful suggestions, some of which were, well, smashing.
“The number of people who have said they should just break the glass today is astonishing,” Agrawal replied.
“There’s nothing important in there. It’s 2019. Computers are portable now. Work just moved to a different office. No one is going to smash a pane of glass if they can avoid it.”
A glorious celebration of agile working, or a new low for our throw-away society?
Daddy, Daddy Pool?
Diary has been sent a press release about “a generation of innovative accommodation, born of a determination to modernise and raise the profile of the classic mountain apartment hotel”. Sounds intriguing. The Terrésens group is launching “a brand new concept, with totally original residential programmes that are premium, new, modern, and offer higher standards of comfort and service in ski stations”.
Consider us tempted – and we are not alone, it seems. “These new residences will meet a growing demand from customers wanting to invest in property with a good payback and ensuring year‑after-year income from their acquisition,” Terrésens adds. It all seems simply wonderful. But why, oh why, have they called it… Daddy Pool?
