Here's an excerpt from that diary which has 148 comments at this time:
"Things are not jolly on the British high street this holiday season (the "high street" is the shopping street in any town, or any large neighbourhood if you're in a big city). In the past 24 hours, three well-known store chains have "called in the administrators," i.e. gone bankrupt. Many others are teetering on the brink.
In the country famously described as a "nation of shopkeepers"--whether originally by Napoleon or Adam Smith, no one knows--this does not make for yuletide cheer.
The three stores to pack it in just now are Whittard of Chelsea, Officers Club, and Zavvi. Whittard is the kind of place you buy presents for your gran--tea and a nice mug, or a cute teapot. Zavvi is what used to be the Virgin Megastores music/film/games chain, which only changed over to trading under its new name recently. Officers Club is a low-cost men's clothing shop. Why worry? Well, none of these is a "high-end" retailer. They're places that sell affordable items that most people in work can afford.
And that's the problem--you need to be in work to afford to buy DVDs, or a new jacket, or some nice mugs. I happen to live at ground zero of rising unemployment in the UK, apparently--my ward (neighbourhood) is at 14.5 percent unemployed now and going up.
Other shops have also been closing down in the weeks running up to Christmas. The biggest of these was Woolworth's."...