Firstly, Happy New Year!
Secondly...
I saw on the news that HMV in Britain has entered administration, with the very real risk of being shut down for good. We lost our last HMV shop in Brisbane in 2010, the Aussie side of things having been bought up by their competitors - Sanity.
Sanity is a mish-mash of cds, dvds and such, and I have always found their shops difficult to navigate my way around. HMV were always neat and tidy and very easy to find what you were after.
If HMV shuts its doors in England, it will be sad indeed, especially after it seems that two other well-known British companies have closed up shop in recent months - Comet, and Jessops.
I've also seen that in Ceramix' neck of the woods, Jacksons of Reading are to close down at the end of the year. Jacksons have been a household name in Reading for 137 years, and are best known for their money shute system (no electronic cash registers for them). I remember David Jones having this system in Brisbane when I was a girl.
Closer to home, we recently lost Darrell Lea - a very long standing family-owned Australian chocolate making company.
Before I moved house, I used to go out and buy my cds, dvds and such at the shops, but since moving house, I find myself in a position where it is very difficult indeed to get out much, so I find I am relying more and more on online purchases and downloads. While that is no fault of companies like HMV (I get off the property whenever I can), it does seem to be the way of things these days. People are becoming more insular, and less social. Children are getting technology much earlier than we did. Are we teaching our children to become anti-social, grunting, and rude by giving them things like ipods and ipads, tablets and laptops when they are as young as 7 or 8?
I think I prefer the days when birthdays and Christmas guaranteed at least one book to unwrap....
