His master's croak

Cheap laughs, cheap shots...

...nothing to be proud of, I know. But, anyway, here's a photo of our education secretary.

Michael (Tim Nice-But-Dim) Gove. That's education he's running. He wrote the introduction to the Bible, you know. The Prologue According to St Tim (Nice But Dim).

His Master's (losing his) Voice...

...as another High Street chain goes into administration. An awful shame. There's too many retailers going under, some iconic brands.

However, didn't these guys ruthlessly put the old, local, independents out of business?

In my lifetime the High Street has become homogenised. From a range of useful to thoroughly weird one-off, small, local, often family-run businesses, to what the High Street is now: a long, narrow, outdoor shopping Mall, for the elderly, the nostalgic and people without the means of transport to hit the nearest out of town retail park (if ever there was a misuse of the word park, it's in the context of the retail park – warehouses with some racking and tills at the front, all for show fit out and leaking roof) or Arndale Centre. The same old same old shops, over and over again, town after town.

I remember an old record shop. All the LP sleeves were in racks, empty. The records were stacked, in anonymous white cardboard sleeves behind the counter. Singles were asked for by name. The charts were displayed on felt notice boards, spelt out in small plastic letters. Unguarded. Letters did go missing on occasion. They were smaller versions of the old cinema signs.

This sort of thing.

There were soundproof booths where you could have a record played. Try before you buy, sort of thing. The booths were soundproofed with this perforated hardboard, a material unique to record shops, and uniquely useless acoustically. Sound attenuation depends on mass (hardboard's about as lightweight as you can get), continuity (perforations?), and thickness. Eventually there were headphones. These were like something from outer space. They virtually were cans strapped to your head.

The big boys have had few sleepless nights over shutting down places like this:

They've given us the usual roster of shops: Waterstones Books, HMV Records, Costas, Nero, Starbucks Coffee, Greggs Pasties, KFC, McDonalds, Wimpy Fast Food, Argos Everything, you can reel them off. All the same, everywhere.

Perhaps a few empty units driving down rents will help with regaining some diversity. If not there's always the charity shops to move in.