As if the high street hasn’t suffered enough, now Robbie Williams has come along to stick the boot in. A track on The Christmas Present – the former Take That star’s first Christmas album – is called Let’s Not Go Shopping. If his still bafflingly large legion of fans listen to him, this could end retail forever.
The big-band-style number’s lyrics include: “We don’t need shopping/It gets me hoppin’/We could be boppin’/With Old King Cole.”
Williams also croons: “We’ll just not venture/To shopping centres/No retail tension/No stress or strife.”
The Christmas Present is available in shops now (if you can find one that still sells CDs) – Diary implores readers to heed Robbie’s words, and not buy it.
Straw, wood, bricks – what next?
The big, bad wolf may have to learn a few new tricks in 2020 – at least if we can believe a list of the eco-friendly building materials that architects, engineers and construction professionals predict will be making it big in the next year. Top of the list with 74% in a survey conducted by, you guessed it, Sell House Fast, is bamboo – a substance more commonly associated with pandas than little pigs. But the large-lunged lupine will be delighted to see a fairy tale comeback for straw bales at number two, with 69%. The wolf-proof qualities of other materials on the list remain to be tested: they include Timbercrete, recycled plastics, ferrock, Lego, Hempcrete and cork. OK, Diary lied about one of those – but we defy BBW to blow down our Lego house, no matter how much he huffs and puffs.
It’s good, but it’s not right
Each week, EG receives a variety of press releases that aren’t for us. They might be kind of in the right ballpark, but not quite on point – or they may be so out there we wonder how we ever ended up on the mailing list. We don’t normally trouble you with them, but this week, we’ll make an exception.
First, one from column A: a pitch for an article named “A specifier’s guide to fasteners and fixings”. The e-mail explains: “Our feature looks at how to specify fasteners and fixings, the different types of fasteners and fixings available, and what to consider when specifying fasteners and fixings, including whole-life costs, corrosion factors, aesthetics, legislation and regulation.” It adds that, if we are interested in running the article, they can “send imagery across”. Tempting, but we’ll have to politely decline.
Another near miss is: “Why lighting controls are crucial to reimagining retail” – a no doubt fully switched-on and highly illuminating read, but one which doesn’t quite turn us on.
And then there is the press release that comes completely out of nowhere, which has absolutely zero chance of coverage in a commercial property magazine. Well, until Diary sees it. This week, we were alerted to a “Christmas party essential”: jockey slipshorts. “The Christmas party season is upon us,” the e-mail explains, “and every woman is looking for the perfect dress to impress, but what to wear underneath is just as important. The Jockey® Skimmies® Short Length Slipshort helps every woman go from desk to disco with its stylish and comfortable finish.” Every woman, remember. They said it twice. Don’t go trying to think differently.
A princely sum indeed
Who would have thought that the Pizza Express in Woking would make the Diary page two weeks in a row? But that is where we are. The country’s most strangely memorable restaurant caught our eye again this week on Twitter, courtesy of @clicktopurchase – a transactional platform for executing property sales online by a legally binding exchange of contracts. Its tweet read: “#Pizza Express #woking #realestateinvestment sold by @SingerVielle for the #princely sum of £1.25m. Exchanged online using #clicktopurchase. Another case study of superior marketing and unique online execution technology.” We see what they did there. Does “superior marketing” cover a mention by royalty on a high-profile car crash of a TV interview? Well, there’s no such thing as bad publicity…
#Pizza Express #woking #realestateinvestment sold by @SingerVielle for the #princely sum of £1.25m. Exchanged online using #clicktopurchase. Another case study of superior marketing and unique online execution technologyhttps://t.co/TFm5xmPOso pic.twitter.com/zYyI3h861s
— clicktopurchase® (@clicktopurchase) November 25, 2019
The name game
Sports Direct International’s unusual plan to change its name to Frasers Group, to create a more upmarket image, has so far raised plenty of eyebrows – not least after the FTSE 250 company expressed its regret over buying House of Fraser mere months ago. But it’s no stranger to change; lest we forget, it began life as Mike Ashley Sports, became Sports Soccer in 1995, changed again to Sports World International in 2005, then settled on Sports Direct when it listed in 2007. Twitter was full of potential alternative names, many provided by disgruntled Newcastle United fans – but best we don’t share them here. Might EG suggest “SD” as a neater way forward? Or perhaps, to borrow from the playbook of one of HoF’s more successful rivals, Sports Direct & Partners?
