Cod Almighty | Diary
Diary - Friday 17 October 2008
17 October 2008
A bloke called Alan Peach was interviewed over your Guest Diarist's breakfast smoothie this morning (on the Today programme). Mr Peach is head of retail for Brookfield Europe, which plans and develop shopping centres - it is a seriously big outfit, which did the Eden centre in High Wycombe, among others. Would he, the interviewer posed, commence the development of any retail development in the current economic climate? Peachy snorted and then there was silence. Recovering his composure, he said words to the effect that, basically, it would be suicidal. Even if things improved he felt it would be a long time before there was an appetite for retail expansion, especially out of town. Peach said things like: "No-one in their right mind would open a shopping centre in the current climate" and "it takes seven to ten years to plan a successful centre". Oh dear.
Whether Mr Fenty takes Radio 4 with his cornflakes we don't know; perhaps he is more of a Wogan man. But if he does listen to the politically obsessed, economic-doom-laden Today, then he would have heard an independent qualified expert rubbish the Fentydome concept in today's England, probably without him being aware of its planned existence. You can't make a hen out of a feather, this Swedish bloke used to remind me in my Tor Line days. Funnily enough, Triangle sort of proved that homily, you know, and if it didn't then I still think there is a lot more feather than hen these days to Town's new ground project, don't you? Oh, now it sounds like I'm rubbing it in - but we can't wish away a recession, and this one is big and here for ages and bloody ages. Time to do a Changing Rooms-style makeover on BP, folks!
Well, Town have four matches between now and the end of October, starting with in-form Exeter away tomorrow. Mr re-Newell told Mariners World yesterday that he was taking 18 players, leaving at sparrow-fart this morning with the aim of a leg-stretch training session this afternoon. The interview this week was enlivened by the requirement to guess the question posed from the content of Newell's reply, as we couldn't hear Dale at all. This editing may have been necessitated by a combination of the length of Newell's answers and the slow, measured tones he adopts when questioned. The newest messiah also confirmed that he is glad to have another month's worth of Trotter and joined the general chorus that we haven't seen the best of the lad yet.
Boshell's ham is still a bit strung so he he won't rejoin Town's party until "some stage next week". Bolland, of course, is still midway through series 4 of 24, although he has promised to watch a Town match on DVD as a bit of a break as soon as the lads win one. Newell claims that he is picking the side at the moment based on who is "on form in training" but didn't proffer any names of those looking sharp. Exeter are feeling confident after three wins on the bounce and those loyal and slightly mad Mariners fans trekking down to Devon may get the chance to see an opposition player rejoicingly called Jack Obersteller. I don't know why, but Obersteller is just a great! name. See yer.