Who says a retail apocalypse has to be a bad thing? Not intu, that’s for sure. It’s bringing a dystopic nightmare to Nottingham’s Victoria Centre, complete with… zombies! Just in time for Halloween, meetspaceVR is introducing Zero Latency – “the global leader in free-roam, multiplayer virtual reality gaming” – to the upper mall in October, under a six-year lease of 6,000 sq ft of space. Shoppers can take a break from battling through the shambling hordes in real life by, er, battling through the shambling hordes in a virtual hellscape. As anyone who has seen Dawn of the Dead will know, zombies and shopping centres are the perfect combination, so this idea is just like the unfortunate victim of a revenant attack: a no-brainer.
Howdy partners
Tricky business, a retail rebrand – lots of trouble and expense involved. You’ve got the graphic design of the logo, all the PR and marketing involved in educating the public, and then there’s the roll-out of signage across stores and delivery lorries and so on. And then the hassle of changing your Twitter handle. But even with all that going on this week, John Lewis & Partners still had time to remember the little things – like the internet namesake likely to get caught up in all the excitement. The ever-considerate @jlandpartners – formerly known as @johnlewisretail – made sure to alert the long-suffering man from Blacksburg, Virginia, who describes himself as “Computer science educator, father of four, social liberal, atheist, and not a retail store”. It tweeted: “As our favourite handler of wayward Tweets and maybe the most patient man on Twitter @johnlewis, we wanted to alert you to our new name.” Will this spare the Virginian John Lewis his daily barrage of errant customer complaints? Probably not. But, good-spirited as ever, he praised the retailer’s big relaunch ad (featuring children singing Bohemian Rhapsody), quipping: “Caught in a landslide. I can relate.”
All is not Rosy
Last week EG reported that US fizzy-drinks powerhouse Coca-Cola was purchasing British coffee leviathan Costa from its owner, Whitbread, for £3.9bn. Quite a coup for Whitbread, considering it bought Costa for a mere £15m back in 1995. Diary wasn’t surprised by the bid, given the relentless rise of coffee shops on the high street, despite this year’s doom and gloom in the wider retail sector. Though we were shocked to discover some frightening news. It seems that we have all had our heads turned by the java juice. According to The Grocer, the traditional British cup of tea is at risk. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, in post-Brexit Britain, even the cuppa is in jeopardy. Apparently, Brits drank 870m fewer cups of tea last year, as our traditional love affair with the hot beverage went off the boil. That translates to the UK buying 2.6m fewer kilograms of Rosy Lea, the steepest decline in four years. The builder’s brew is in peril. Nothing is sacred anymore. Oh well, is it pumpkin spice latté season yet?
Good offices
Blessed are the surveymakers. In the quiet summer months, they make putting together a weekly Diary page just about possible. This week it’s co-working developer Areaworks, which set about finding out what – and who – we want in our workplaces. No major surprises in the “what” – simple pleasures such as a coffee machine or a beer fridge beat out more wacky desires, such as ball pits, slides and hammocks. But the “who” has Diary scratching its head. Areaworks compiled respondents’ top 10 dream co-working office companions, and number one (with 20% of the vote) is Sir David Attenborough. Have they thought this through? He would hate working in confined spaces! Such luminaries as Richard Branson, Will Smith, Michael McIntyre, Ryan Reynolds, Graham Norton, the late Steve Jobs and, apparently, Elon Musk are included in a heavily male-dominated list. The two exceptions are Countdown’s Rachel Riley in sixth, and Mary Berry in ninth – and the latter is singled out as a “dream colleague” for her “delicious bakes”. Same old story of women struggling to get the top jobs, even when they don’t actually exist. It’s 2018, people! Looks like REWIRE still has work to do…
See you in church?
There are jitters out there in the investment market. No one – and we really mean no one – has the foggiest about what is going to happen post-Brexit. So, if you are thinking about investment, why not hope for some divine protection and buy a small but much-loved Catholic church in Chickenley near Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Diary, as regular readers well know, loves a quirky investment, so imagine our joy when we saw that the 5,253 sq ft St Thomas More Church and Presbytery was being offered for an alternative use through Lambert Smith Hampton, acting on behalf of the Diocese of Leeds after a pastoral review. Praise be.
Too cool for school
“Starting uni and looking for a place to live?” asks JLL UK Residential on Twitter, before offering a handy link to view properties in… Knightsbridge. A quick click through and the first result is a “truly stunning” four-bed apartment in Cadogan Square for a mere £11,500 a week. That’s only £1.8m in student loans over a three-year course. Fitting that JLL’s included hashtag reads: #backtoschool – because these sums surely don’t add up.
