Charity Shopping

Been out doing a bit of charity shopping and picked up a couple of vinyls, a rather special cushion and a cute little T G Greens teapot. The teapot is a bit of a triple threat for me, not only am I a local boy, I was born and raised in Church Gresley, but my Nan worked as a cleaner at the T G Greens pottery for years and the piece it’s self is named after the mine my Grandad worked most of his adult life down.

Death On The High Street

I'm a gamer, I've been a gamer for most of my life and I don't expect that to change any time soon. I have a lot of good memories involving video games, a fair number of those take place in local video game stores.

When I was younger local, independent video game stores where quite common place, in fact even small towns would often have at least one, sometimes several. These independent stores would usually only stock a handful of new games, often only ten or so titles for each console. What they were really good for is having large libraries of used games, usually at a considerably cheaper price than they would be to buy new. 

Growing up fairly poor buying used was basically my only option when it came to owning a copy of a video game. For me even getting a used copy of a game was a big thing and I would often spend 30-40 minutes browsing through a shops collection, reading boxes, checking the condition of cartridges and disks and generally making sure I made the best purchase possible with my hard come by coin. This experience was shared by a fair number of other people I knew and over time you'd become familiar with other regulars of the store and the people running them. These stores were often ran by people with a passion for gaming and as such you would frequently find stores holding small tournaments, competitions and open days where customers were encouraged to play the latest releases on the newest consoles. This meant for a lot of gamers shopping for video games became almost a social thing, you knew that in those shops you were amongst other people that shared a common interest with you and that made you feel comfortable.

Unfortunately this period of a market driven by small independent stores didn't last and before long big chain companies like Game, Gamestation and Grainger Games started to push the smaller independents out of the market and over a period of years these stores became more or less none existent. As the larger stores dominated the market the price of used games rose fairly sharply to the point where there was, and there still is, so little saving to be made buying used that it became almost pointless. This turned a lot of people away from high street stores and sent them looking else where in the search for bargains and the internet was more than happy to oblige.

It soon became clear that it wasn't only cheaper to buy used games online, new games were also considerably cheaper too. This was largely due to selling online costing less, everything can be stored and shipped from a warehouse in the middle of nowhere at minimal cost to the company doing the selling. The chains caught on fairly quickly and were soon offering online sales, often to the detriment to their own high street stores.

As the popularity of online shopping increases the high street game store continues to decline, even the chains are now shutting shops and those that don't shut have seen a marked decline in the number of products and titles in stock. Are we on the verge of witnessing the death of the high street video game shop? Something that played such a huge role in the lives of so many, now adult, gamers. Unfortunately I think we might be, I think we've come too far down the path to turn back. The big chains drove the independents out of the market and now it seems they're doing the same to themselves.

The Demon Barber Of Fleet...... Street

Between both of us working full time and my partner spending her weekends working hard, preparing lessons and marking for the week ahead, we don't always get the opportunity to go out as much as we would like. Last weekend was one of those opportunities, I had booked us tickets to see a local operatic society performing their rendition of Sweeney Todd at Nottingham Arts Theatre. A venue that both me and my partner have a particular fondness for, partially due to it being located in a part of town we like to frequent and partially due to the venue being fairly small, giving performances there an intimacy lacking in larger venues.

Rather than just running into town just to see the show we decided to make a full day of it and headed in to Nottingham early to do a bit of shopping and hopefully have a meal out. With that in mind I booked a table at George's Great British Kitchen for lunch, a place I have wanted to try since I first learned of it's existence last year.

We started the day with a steady wander around town, visiting a few of our favourite shops on the way. Lush, Dr Martens, Fopp, Forbidden Planet and Brew Cavern just to name a few. Having purchased ourselves a few bits, bobs and treats we headed over to George's for lunch. For those of you who don't know George's it's an upscale fish and chip restaurant on Queen Street, just off the old market square in the town centre.

For me fish and chips is a genuine British institution and to find a real restaurant serving proper hand cut chips (Frozen chips at a restaurant, or even a food pub, is a HUGE no for me) with beautifully fresh, hand battered fish is an absolute treat and somewhere I need to visit. To find one in the heart of the midlands, about as far away from the sea as you can get, is even more special.

After lunch we headed off to the Notthingham Arts Theatre to catch the two o'clock performance. Having ordered the tickets well in advance, we had really good seats a few rows from the front with an excellent, central  view of the stage, in more or less the same seats as our previous two visits to the venue. The theatre itself is fairly small but very well laid out, with a small stage at the far end and seating for around 300 people set out in 3 columns.

The stage was dark except for one beam of light shining onto a pile of wooden furniture and props in the centre, into the light stepped a single man to announce the story of Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of fleet street. From the very outset the cast managed to set an eerie, atmospheric tone despite the fact that they had absolutely no backdrops and very limited space. Using a meagre supply of props and relying heavily on the casts vocal talents and the dark atmosphere of the story, they made the most of the small stage, moving the furniture and props around to create the different scenes required for the different narrative elements of the show. The casting was excellent and the actors where very believable in their roles, with standout performances by the actors playing Sweeney Todd, Mrs Lovett and Judge Turpin. Throughout the show the musical accompaniment was second to none and the vocal performances of the actors were excellent, often using harsh tones and harmonies to counter point the dark atmosphere and foreboding presence of the story. Overall a very enjoyable show, very well presented, very well performed and very deserving of the audiences applause. An experience both myself and my partner are eager to repeat.

The show itself was a little over 3 hours long, with the 20 minute interval and allowing time for people to enter and leave the venue, meant it was early evening by the time we left and decided that bedways was rightways, so best we go homeways and get a bit of spatchka.