Thursday, April 05, 2007

Too damn tired.

Lousy night's sleep for many reasons sadly none of them being naughty. So other then yawning symptoms include swearing. "With many people planning n going on holiday have you thought about the environmental cost" - Who gives a ****. "G4 are splitting up" Who the **** are G4, are who gives a ****. I turned off just as they started singing "Bohemian Rhapsody" I thought there was a law against that "Any performers other then Queen singing Bohemian Rhapsody will be forced to put on drag and push vacuum cleaners around for no less time then one year"

I also stop being able to spell, my first stab at the title was "Too damn tidy" which isn't even close.

Almost got hit in the car twice, once doing a 360 at Millfield Road/Street/whatever island, yes I was indicating a right turn. A van opposite me didn't stop. At least she realised her mistake and looked very chagrined when I stopped on the island. Luckily I saw in advance the speed she was doing and made the right assumption.

The second time was on the Worcester Road when someone pulled out in front of me. No I wasn't speeding.

Oh and two ambulances screamed past me close to Sandy Lane.

Traffic was lousy last night though for a very good reason - absolutely **** all. I joined a queue in Worcester Road and took 15 minutes to get to the island another 15 minutes took me to York Street and after that it was pretty much plain sailing. This weekend promises joy particular with the procession of witnesses through the town scheduled for um 10, 11?


Someone missed recording the Great Global Scandal and wanted to see it. I'd still got it on my PVR so one laptop, one USB flash drive, and one USB cable later I transferred it across. Old laptop with USB1.bloody1. Just under 2GB to transfer started just before 2pm finished about 4am (I woke up again and checked it)

Can't check it works as it's MPEG-2 and apparently the codec is copyrighted - give us money. Running it through a software DVD player I get no sound and a broken picture, but he'll be trying it on a PS3 so <shrugs> it'll either work or it doesn't.


Chris Danks over on WFA makes comments about the town council meeting as does Tav who has a detailed report on the bridge.

Chris mentions the size of the proposed Tesco, which I've already mentioned is seemingly contradicted by the physical evidence. The answer I posted there I'll abbreviate here - Looks like they're only considering retail space not building space. Just thought, someone reminded me about the Tesco advert for Tesco Director whatever the hell it's called delivering furniture and whatnot. Could it be that they want to use the Stouport site as a base of operations for that?

Tan Lane School as a site for Tesco hmm let's see. Yes if you wanted to keep the existing building size it would, with some squeezing, fit into that plot. The car-park could be kept, or the existing building demolished and turned into a car-park. I'm assuming that they won't knock down the building until after the other's built in order to make an easy transition (and not lose any money) otherwise knock down the existing building and turn the Tan Lane site into the car park... no too much traffic down Tan Lane have the car entrance/exit on Lombard Street. Even so the car-park will be about half the size of the proposed one in order to maintain the building size.

That could work, but it would mean some concessions on the part of Tesco regarding size. The basic problem is the existing structures. I can't see Tesco going X months without a store so the existing one will be kept at least until the new one is operational, they could try and buy the properties on Tan Lane, but would they be allowed to remove them even if they succeeded? It's tight.

2 comments:

Don B said...

Trouble for me is that as Tesco now have 31.2% of all the supermarket trade and the top 3 (Tesco, Asda & Sainsbury's) increased their take of the total retail market by another 1.6% in the last quarter I am now feeling that they are all becoming just too dominant and other retailers need protecting in order to keep our townscapes. All of which make me feel as if I am a luddite and anti-progress.

FlipC said...

Amusingly supermarkets were, as I'm sure you know, originally seen as offering more choice and competition. It's like any business, once it gets large enough it can do what it likes and that includes using its purchasing tactics to lower prices to a point that smaller shops can't compete.

I saw a few days ago a pre-emptive bid by Tesco with regard to a Monopolies report. They'd already investigated the practice of buying up land to prevent others using it, and now they're looking at how supermarkets affect the stores around them. Tesco say that the Commision is likely to use a local value of "10-15 drive" and they want a "30 minute drive".

Just think what that'd constitute as 'local' from here.