Shopping
Nostalgia for the bustling high street is misplaced
Annie Gray is refreshingly unsentimental about the days when cooking for the family involved time-consuming visits to the butcher, the greengrocer and baker
‘Life was good, very good, almost too good’ – Wallis Simpson’s year in China
Arriving in Shanghai in the summer of 1924, the elegant 28-year-old embarked on a busy but harmless life of pleasure which would later be cast as a wild debauch
Temples of delight
There are two journeys I’ll need to make after reading Tessa Boase’s heartbreakingly poignant book about London’s lost department stores.…
For many of us charity begins in shops
When everything re-opened after the first lockdown, I didn’t immediately head to a restaurant, bar or hairdresser. I went to…
Real life
The girl in the posh soap shop put her right arm out, palm flat in my face, and shouted: ‘Stand…
Barometer
Price of protest Greenpeace was fined £80,000 for defying a court order and occupying an oil rig in the North…
The weird and wacky world of Goop
The other day, as I walked with my partner through Notting Hill, we came across a shop which deserves to…
A seven-year winter or a pleasant 2019? Your guess is as good as mine
A friend reminds me that she sold her house last summer because I warned her 18 months ago that Brexit…
Save us from Tiger, the posh Poundland of tat
There is a Tiger on the loose. It is stalking our high streets. It is prowling our train stations. It…
Ikea’s real genius is making furniture disposable
By all accounts, Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad was my kind of guy: may he rest in peace (on an Askvoll…
How your brain buys a sofa
Almost every popular commercial product owes its success to two different qualities. First, it does the job it is ostensibly…
The 5 per cent of people who get to decide everything
What happens when 95 per cent of people like something, but 5 per cent of people prefer something else? You might think…
After the Black Friday flop, shops can get back to what they do best
The high street flopperoo that was ‘Black Friday’ may have something to do with terrorism fears, or even the downturn…
Christmas lists
William Brown had the right idea about Christmas lists. Under the heading ‘Things I Want for Christmas’, he requests: a…
How hard should we fight Black Friday?
Should we make peace with this imported festival of consumerism?
We let programmers run our lives. So how’s their moral code?
A few years ago, in the week before Christmas when supermarket sales are at their highest, staff at one branch…
Barometer
Old bags The government announced details of a compulsory 5p charge for single-use plastic bags in shops. Plastic bags have…
A lightbulb moment at the self-checkout
I spent the last few days in Deal and Folkestone with Professor Richard Thaler at Nudgestock, Ogilvy’s seaside festival of…
Something useful for your Budget, George: fast-track approval for challenger banks
In my Yorkshire town of Helmsley the NatWest branch, originally an outpost of Beckett & Co of Leeds, has closed…
Feel the burn
My trendy wood-burning stove is leaving me cold, wheezy, red-eyed and exhausted
Prizes for Mick Cash of RMT and Dave Lewis of Tesco – but praise for Jon Moulton too
Mixed results for the Brits at the Golden Globes, but I’m pleased to announce that my Golden Monkey Wrench for…
Diary
I was once bundled into a police car in Palm Springs to explain why I didn’t have snow-tyres on my…
Fashion statement
Clothes with slogans on them are a sure sign of a bore
Winter Diary
A few days ago I went truffle hunting in Piedmont. It’s been a bumper year for white truffles in northern…
S&M and B&Q
I never got beyond page 20 in Fifty Shades of Grey. No one got shot in the first chapter, and…
