{"id":1355,"date":"2009-09-05T12:40:56","date_gmt":"2009-09-05T12:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/?p=1355"},"modified":"2022-08-26T08:31:02","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T08:31:02","slug":"more-of-the-same-please","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/2009\/09\/more-of-the-same-please\/","title":{"rendered":"More of the same, please"},"content":{"rendered":"

Abingdon is getting a WH Smith and\u00a0feelings are mixed<\/a>, mostly inclining towards the “no, thanks” end of the argument. I’m torn myself. The part of me conditioned by childhood says that having a Smiths in town is a Good Thing because … well, because it is. Anyway, a Smiths would be a sign of confidence in the town’s reviving economy which we could well do with. There’s still the gaping\u00a0abscess\u00a0where Woolies once stood.<\/p>\n

A more realistic part of me observes that everything you’re likely to want from a Smiths,* you can already get anyway – we have a very good stationers, we have two very book shops and, right opposite where it’s going to be, a very good newsagents. They are all privately owned, run by people who know exactly what they are doing and who can help out with your stationery \/ literary \/ newsagently needs, and I would hate to see any of them lose business to a national chain.<\/p>\n

[*Exception: music. Since the fall of Modern Music and Woolies we have no decent music sellers: Woolies also took with it the DVD market.]<\/p>\n

So, by and large I too incline towards the no, thanks brigade. We could maybe do with limited colonisation by some of the national chains. A Woolies replacement would be something else, or a decent clothes shop. Maybe an M&S where Woolies once stood. But we really don’t need a WH Smiths, unless it’s a Smiths that tones down on the books and papers and stationery and really pushes the digital media items.<\/p>\n

We could well do with more like this, however.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>On a sunny September morning he was sitting in the middle of the precinct and delighting passers by with gentle Spanish-style guitar pieces. That’s the kind of thing that makes it worth going into the precinct and, while you’re there, spending money in the shops. And I dropped a quid in his guitar case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Abingdon is getting a WH Smith and\u00a0feelings are mixed, mostly inclining towards the “no, thanks” end of the argument. I’m torn myself. The part of me conditioned by childhood says that having a Smiths in town is a Good Thing … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[113,259],"class_list":["post-1355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bens-life","tag-abingdon","tag-commerce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1355"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4082,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1355\/revisions\/4082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benjeapes.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}