High Street eating itself

So the next stage in the saga of Guildford High Street, the retail paradise rapidly fading, is that Waterstone's having been forced out of their shop by a greedy landlord are moving 100 yards over the street to the recently vacated Accessorize and Monsoon. I don't think books necessarily have anything up on women's fashions but clearly something in their respective business models and financial structures mean that this makes sense.

It's such a crazy way to run an economy. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. All the waste that goes into providing more stuff than anyone could buy and making space a financial instrument in its own right, all to make people who have more money than they could ever spend just a little bit richer and anaesthetize the rest of us with some nice things every now and then.

The Climate Strikers last week marched down this street but many will also have come along here since then and taken part unquestioningly in the retail game - even if you do join the dots between property shenanigans and consumer culture and the planet burning it's hard to admit one's own complicity.

I've been chatting today with ex-Tuttlers about how you might make simple crafts an appealing part of the community landscape - not high-tech plastic recycling plants and not corn dollies but experimenting with ways to re-use stuff with some imagination and flair and replace the rubbish in our lives. Early days, but I'm encouraged.

Anyway! Cheer up! It might never happen!