The shocking truth about supermarket convenience stores
Beans, Messi and corpcore.
Hello!
If you find yourself at a loose end and the weather isn’t too bad, you could do much worse than walk the Great Glen Way stretching from Fort William to Inverness. I did this week and it was most agreeable. It’s formed of a combination of lochs, rivers and canals. The route was originally constructed in the 19th century after James Watt (a Scottish engineer) published a report in 1744 saying a 10-foot canal made up of 32 locks (not lochs) could connect the two sides of Scotland.
Around 1800, the Highlands were not in a good way thanks to the clearances, which saw tens of thousands of people evicted from their farms. Unsurprisingly a common decision was to up sticks and move to the US or Canada. Thomas Telford (another Scottish engineer) was asked to look at the problem of emigration and suggested, in true Dickensian fashion, that they should just build a load of stuff to keep everyone busy and employed. The Caledonian Canal was one of the resulting constructions.
Like many a government project, everyone convinced themselves it was a good idea but didn’t interrogate the numbers properly and it was a commercial failure. Except for During World War One, when ships used it to sneak past the Germans. It has been a successful tourist attraction though, Queen Victoria went up it in 1873, for example.
There’s quite a lot of Loch Ness Monster stuff to avoid and accommodation prices are absurd during the summer (you could camp if you’re really ‘ard) but the scenery is pretty spectacular. You feel like you’re in a costume drama, charging along the hilltops, particularly if you are wearing a full suit of armour.
Loch arf,
Hugo
Chief Lochsmith
The Business of Stuff
Competition
The winner of the second prize draw is Mr Oliver Aragoni - congrats Oli, you’ve won yourself a month of free coffees!
The Stuff
Government to reignite UK’s industrial strategy ♟️ - Jonathan Reynolds, Britain’s business secretary, is ‘ruddy fed up’ with losing out to France and Spain on international investment. The UK is basically the world’s butler when it comes to services like moving money around and suing competitors but we don’t actually make that much stuff anymore which old Reynolds wants to change with a new strategy.
Bali has had enough of tourists 🏝️ - one of the problems with being a stunning island with gnarly surf and generally good vibes is everyone wants to visit. It’s all getting a bit much though so the Indonesian government is considering a moratorium on all new tourism-related construction. Stick that up your Potato Head.
Nike appoints a new CEO to revive sales 👟 - Elliott Hill who had previously worked at Nike for 32 years is rejoining as head honcho. Rivals like Hoka and On have been taking chunks out of Nike’s market share since the pandemic. On top of this, Addidas has recovered from the Ye drama and everyone in Clapham is now buying Sambas instead of AF1s. Mr Hill has got some serious work to do.
Ivory Coast is suffering from a bout of bean smuggling 🫘 - the West African country is the world’s largest producer of Cocoa and is considering hiking its prices as beans are being illegally transported to countries like Liberia where they fetch a higher price. Shortfalls this year have led cocoa futures to skyrocket so understandably the farmers want in on the action.
Demand for Tupperware is falling 📦 - the manufacturer of containers has filed for bankruptcy as sales continue to fall. It must be annoying when everyone calls any sort of plastic container your company’s name but the company itself isn’t doing very well. Odds are none of the ones in your cupboard are actually made by them and people are trying to move away from plastics anyway.
Microsoft to make use of an infamous nuclear site ☢️ - Three Mile Island is to be restarted to power the growing demands of AI computing. One of the reactors underwent a meltdown in 1979 and is still being decommissioned but Unit 1 was shut down in 2019 for economic reasons. It is now being brought to life, and rebranded as the Crane Clean Energy Centre. It is expected that by 2030 data centres will use 8% of the energy generated in the US.
Lionel Messi quadrupled the revenue of Inter Miami ⚽ - teams across Major League Soccer have surged in value since the Argentinian joined the league but he has made his club both the most popular American sports team on social media and the most valuable ‘soccer’ team in the US. The question of course is ‘What will happen when he leaves?’
Supermarket convenience stores are way more expensive than large ones 💰 - a study by Which? found they charge up to 21% more with the biggest gap at Morrisons. This is partially because small stores are often in more expensive locations but there is also a whiff of profiteering as many people have limited choice as to where they can shop.
Corpcore thrives as corporate fashion leaves the office 👔 - officewear has been morphing as people have realised maybe you don’t have to wear a suit all the time but brands like Prada and Ganni are taking on pinstripes and ties. “9 to thrive” was identified as a key category on Depop over the summer and even Taylor Swift had an office-type set on her Eras tour.
Newscorp-owned REA ups offer for Rightmove to nearly £5.9bn 🏘️ - it is their second offer for the property website with the original one being rejected as “wholly opportunistic”. It has an 80% market share in online property listings but has warned of slowing customer growth. REA Group is a digital advertising company and is a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp Australia.
Quote of the week
“If you can look into the seeds of time
And say will grain will grown which will not.” - Macbeth