The UK’s double dip recession has led to some wacky transformations in the retail sector. Among the less welcome of these are the continuing transformation of central London into a shopping theme park. Having ruined parts of east London with Olympics developments, the planners now want to turn those parts of The City between Holborn and Cheapside into a so-called ‘shopper’s paradise’ too – so the suburban middle-class can have days out in town where they enjoy retail therapy a-go-go all the way from Oxford Street to Spitalfields. Right now there is also a race on to open new (as well as revamp old) London stores before the start of the Olympics.

Nina Conti is a showbiz ‘personality’ who has just revealed – to promote her new TV film A Ventriloquist’s Story – that she was theatre maverick Ken Campbell’s lover in the mid-nineties (when he was twice her age). Conti claims Campbell decided she was ‘a clown who didn’t want to wear a nose’ so he sent her a teach yourself ventriloquism kit. And Conti now seems to credit learning ventriloquism with kick-starting her career – although the fact she comes from a showbiz family must have helped too! Conti’s current publicity drive reminded me of my own encounters with Ken Campbell (minus the affair, scandal lovers).

Yesterday I joined cooperative social networking site Zurker. Like Diaspora before it this one is being promoted as a potential Facebook killer. To take over from Facebook any new social networking site needs a critical mass and we haven’t seen this happen yet – but presumably will do at some point. After all, Facebook effectively killed MySpace, and MySpace effectively killed Friendster. However the mechanisms for taking over from Facebook may be more complicated than Zurker founder Nick Oba realises. That said I’m giving Zucker a go and if you want to do so as well you can get an invite to participate in the site’s beta testing by clicking here.

I was going to repost my last blog under the almost new title above (I’ve changed the number and subheading) – but then figured it really would be too boring to do this. Besides if you want to read “The Most Boring Blog Post In The World Evah Pt 1: Supermarket stock control” two or more times, all you have to do is click on the link I’ve added to the title here and then you can go over it as much as you like! But don’t forget kids that the French philosopher of vitalism Henri Bergson claimed repetition is the basis of all humour!

There are many ways to make yourself stand out online and one of them is to do things in the worst or most boring way possible. Since this blog is mainly an outta sight groove sensation I figured a few really boring posts would draw both interest and attention to how good most of what I put up here actually is! And obviously the best place to start when aiming for ennui is with something that is not only dull but also frustrates us all – such as supermarket stock control. Like many people I get my shopping in a number of outlets in order to obtain everything at the cheapest possible price.