It is oft forgotten that Amazon started as an online bookseller some thirty years ago. Any book in or out of print is nowadays available, cheaper than chips and in your hands the next day at the click of a button. When the Kindle arrived in 2007, the death of bookshops large and small seemed certain, but here’s the thing: they are still around with a vengeance and following an initial decline, numbers continue to rise. It’s not, after all, just about price and convenience. If you like reading, books, or life at all, a good bookshop is not somewhere you dash in, male clothes-shopping-like, to grab what’s needed. It’s somewhere to browse, linger and be told by knowledgeable staff what’s good and what they’ve just read. You can, of couse, now sort out your pensions and investments online, and many will. But many won’t, and I predict that both bookshops and actual human financial advisers will still be here when the robots rule elsewhere.
Budget Rumours and Possibilities
The Budget Rumour Machine is not the shambles it was last year. Before Rachel’s Swansong all sorts of stuff was leaked to see what sort of puddle it would create.
