BRITAIN’S high streets are teetering on a knife edge. But even with the best will in the world, it’s hard not to admit some of our traditional retailers are a bit shit. Such as these:
WHSmith
Basically Woolworths but without the fun bits like pick’n’mix, it’s a wonder that WHSmith has been able to survive solely on the sale of discounted biographies and multipacks of Sharpies. If it proves tough enough to survive coronavirus it will probably also survive armageddon and continue selling filofaxes to cockroaches.
Dorothy Perkins
Frumpy old Dorothy Perkins should have been killed off ages ago by younger, sexier stores like Topshop and yet it has seen them off and remains a high street fixture, relentlessly churning out boot cut jeans like they never went out of and then back into fashion again. It’s time for it to be put out to pasture.
Holland & Barrett
You’d think Holland & Barrett’s perpetual sales and offers would have them packed to the rafters with people, but instead the stores are empty. This is probably because it’s much easier to buy your vitamin D supplements online without a desperate salesperson trying to upsell you a 5kg tub of banana-flavoured whey protein.
Lush
If you’re the sort of person who enjoys being gently bullied into buying moisturiser with bits of twig in by a teenager with blue hair and a pierced septum, you’ll be sad at the loss of Lush. However, if you like walking down your local high street without being assaulted by a smell that gives you an instant migraine, you’ll be overjoyed.
McColl’s
What use is there for a newsagent’s anymore? We read the papers online, no one smokes and you can buy an unappetising cheese and onion sandwich from the local Tesco Metro. It’s the UK Gold of shops: full of old crap and only clinging on because of the nostalgia value.
