An article in the Southwark News about the closure of Wordsworth Books just confirms what we already knew. Manager Eugene Wolstenholme says:
It’s a difficult time for customer spending. All the big chains are discounting wildly and selling books at half price, which makes it hard for us.
Then we have websites like Amazon who sell for cheaper. But on top of all that there’s been work on Butterfly Walk for eighteen months that were supposed to be finished in February, yet they’re still ongoing.
It’s really affected our passing trade badly.
The shop is to close on January 14, with a closing-down sale starting today. I wonder if we could have changed anything had we found out sooner?
Onto other news. Apparently there was an ice-rink on Camberwell Green the weekend before Christmas. Did anyone see this? I never heard anything about it. Was it advertised anywhere?
A man was shot in the arm last week as he slowed down to let two men cross Love Walk. Police think the men were angry as they thought he hadn’t slowed down quickly enough. That’s the best reason to shoot somebody, I think.
How was your Christmas? I didn’t go to The Castle on Christmas Eve, so apologies to anyone who was waiting for my personal appearance. Instead, I met a friend in The Phoenix. It was very quiet, which was nice because I am getting older and quiet things please me.