A massive thank you to all our loyal customers. Thanks to you we have maintained 70% of our pre-lockdown turnover in our shop.
That’s by day. Meanwhile by night Portobello Road has been mentioned nationally as a place attracting unwelcome partyers, but don’t worry we are closed by then.
Like most businesses our customers range from the very worried to the very relaxed and we try to cater for both.
Forget COVID for a second, if you can and recall the legendary quote from US President Clinton (a keen passenger on Geoffrey Epstein’s Lolita express by the way):
“It’s the Economy, Stupid”
Clearly the possibility of a big recession looms. If inflation is caused by too much money chasing too few goods, recession is the other way round, plenty of goods but not enough money circulating. Here’s the good news: all that’s needed to stop the next train crash is to admit that ex-PM Theresa May was horribly wrong about her magic money tree. It does exist, it’s called the Bank of England. If enough well off voters are hurt we can hope they will force politicians to recognise this.
Meanwhile we note that apart from online mail order the only major sector to have taken no hit so far are rentier property owners and landlords. Ours is demanding rent at the 2019 level and so far has not even offered a rent holiday for when we were closed. It’s time someone started a petition for legislation to deal with this. Abolishing upward only rent reviews would be a good start…
