What’s in store for our shops

NEARLY half of all non-food purchases last month were made over yonder internet. We’re all at it. Internet shopping has been a boon in particular to country folks, who no longer make long round-trips to urban emporia and come away empty-handed.

But there’s a Catch-22 here. We don’t want our shops to go. Recently, I re-watched Breakfast At Tiffany’s, starring Audrey Hepburn as a dreamy gal who loves a highend department store.

You could almost get the same feeling at Jenner’s in Edinburgh and John Lewis, and it would be a crying shame if they ever closed.

That said, I hadn’t been in

Jenner’s for years, even when I lived in Edinburgh, and John Lewis has gone awry. Foot traffic on high streets last week was down 70 per cent compared to last year. Covid-19 restrictions must have caused much of that. But imagine a world without high streets, where we’re all stuck in the hoose. We’ll become more atomised, even more doolally. It’s a worrying time for the human race. But, then, every single moment in human history has been worrying.

Easy meat

AND the lion shall lie down with the lamb. Well, nearly. It’s coming yet. YouTube has amazing instances of fierce and docile beasts cuddling up. It’s way beyond dogs and cats, who used to be mortal enemies.

You can see dogs and foxes, even cats and birds. You can find a lion indulging a baby deer (which usually gets eaten, mind you, when a less woke lion turns up).

I’m not minimising the horror of a cruel natural world. YouTube tried recently to make me watch film of a sparrowhawk eating fledgling robins. But things can only get better, particularly when animals have full stomachs. Finnish researchers say wolves became friendly dogs after we fed them. Today, you never see dogs fighting any more because they get proper tinned food at regular meal times.

Love and philosophy require full stomachs. If we were starving, we’d kill and eat every puppy and kitten within range. But when we are fed we are kind. And, when all the world’s meat comes from laboratories, yea and verily, the lion shall lie down with the lamb.