a world with more cycle nazi’s ignoring cycle lanes in their lycra nut huggers? sounds terrible
Biking in winter sounds rubbish too. Haha.
Mudguards.
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I thinking more sleet and ice cold rain.
I think the bio and medical industry field will expand greatly after this. Working in that sector will suddenly be considered quite a noble and respected profession and that the industry overall will be considered more profitable with many private start-up companies entering the market vying for patents, genome related data business and lifestyle models, devising further tech/personal health hybrid apps/equipment, etc. In the same way you currently have lots of e-commerce related tech companies now, I envisage a sudden swathe of entrepreneurs finding ways to monetise one’s health.
Can envisage it being rather de rigueur for governments to be fervently pro-healthcare investment - creating more diverse and specialised sectors, companies and research facilities.
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Just some quick thoughts with no real answers…
I can’t remember who said it but ‘There was living before 9/11 and then there was living after 9/11 and then that’s it, that’s how you describe living now’ … we’re probably that used to it now that we forget about all the changes to our lives. Wars and air travel being the obvious ones.
To think things won’t change after this is a little naive. Businesses, schools and day to day living will have to adapt incase this happens again. Quicker lockdown procedures will be in place, where life and business can carry on with less interruption. Homes will have pandemic kits as the norm. We’ll probably see more investment in doctors and equipment and newer rolls within communities. What they’ll be, who knows?
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On the skate front, I actually think for those shops who can make it through the coming weeks, this will be the start of good times.
From my limited understanding, theres the £10k rates rebate which can be applied for now.
As store owners are currently not having to physically open a store and do all that comes with that, they get to focus on their online business.
I sort of feel like for a lot of small businesses, focussing on the online business is something which regularly gets pushed by the wayside as the physical store and sales there takes precedent (Which is odd logic usually).
So, idally in the next 6 months, all independent skate stores and brands are going to get really on top of their online business game, ready to serve.
Meanwhile - and history gives us some proof of this - when recessions or crashes happen, people look for something cheap which will make them happy to take up.
Whether that be going back to something they once did or something new they’ve taken an interest in; skateboarding is a good answer. Startup costs are cheap and it’s very cheap once you’ve made that initial outlay.
Folks will have 80% of their salary but aren’t going to be able to go out and hit up a cinema or a burger restaurant. You can’t go grab a coffee or hit the gym. Pubs are out. So, spending that income or being social is very limited.
What are people to do?
Skateboarding ticks those social boxes often covered by the pub etc. as well as exercise boxes, too.
…and it just so happens that the independent skate stores are in a better place than ever to serve because they spent the time on lockdown upping their offering.
I really think that a skate shop in in 6 months will be a good place to be.
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I’m looking at that story about New Look collapsing and wondering if a lot of the fast fashion, cheap chains will fold (relying on shops and foreign supply chains) at the same time as everyone is all over supporting smaller, local, firms at the moment while also at the same time people will re-evaluate how important it is to have new garms every 2 minutes. I’m hoping it’ll mean people will buy less stuff, less often but go for local, higher quality, slightly more expensive but more transparent supply chain. Which is prime territory for local SOS shops and smaller skate brands.
Can only hope!
Hasn’t New Look been closing down for a while? There is one in the shopping centre here and I’m sure it had something about them going out of business way before all of this?
I think the Tories are going to be able to bury lots of stories like that laying blame on the pandemic.
They’re good at blaming someone else usually, in this case, they can blame something that can’t argue.
I did read Next is fucked though.
Next? Don’t they have a MASSIVE online/delivery system?
Next cancelled an order we had for some baby clothes because they’ve closed down their warehouses because they can’t guarantee their workers safety because they can’t do the social distancing thing. They’ve shut down their online shop for the time being.
I’ve got a box of Face magazines stuck at some mystery depot near me, Hermes and useless and eBay customer support is completely shut.
Shit is eBay fucked for everyone?
Nah, just bad luck for me.
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I hope it gets sorted out.
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Everybody will have a reasonable grasp of sign language.
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Same. Trying to match it up with the talking. Loads of it is just miming the thing anyway.
