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A Vulture's Tale
13/07/2011 07:32 pmA Vulture’s Tale
Friday marked the end of an era. Borders was the biggest thing in books when it opened its store in Hay St Mall back in May 2006.
Friday 8th July was the day that Borders finally closed its big fat doors. Before this enormous bookish barn was born, the shop used to belong to Angus and Robertsons. And now they are both gone. It’s sort of sad in a way but they have no one to blame but themselves. That’s what you get when you kill the goose that laid the golden egg
February was when the liquidators got called in. The Angus and Robertson shops were the first to go. Borders looked like it might get a stay of execution but that turned out to be a rather short lived thing indeed
Did the vulture thing when the book shop at the railway station started the 50% off sale. But aside from the place being packed like a tin of sardines, the sad truth was that there was just about nothing worth bothering with even with such a significant discount. As a long time lurker in libraries and at Amazon, it’s got to be good to get the silver sickles slinking out of this serpent’s wallet.
Indulged in one book about the evils of instant gratification but did not bother darkening the door after that. The place had been full of typical airport novels, self help books, romances and stacks of Stephenie Meyer stuff
A few months later was walking past their flagship store in the city centre and watched as the removalists gutted the interior and began the transformation into yet another large, cheap and nasty fashion store. Yesss. Just what dreary old Dursleyville needs more of.
But it was mid June that the serious vulture business began. The liquidators had decided to inflict the killing curse on the biggest book store the city had ever seen. Not in one instant flash of green light but death by a thousand cuts. The first of those was probably 20%. By the time the serpent sniffed out the carnage they were up to 40%. One of the junkies at the book binding class said there was a mailing list and she was on it. First in, best dressed.
( The sad slow death of a book store )
Friday marked the end of an era. Borders was the biggest thing in books when it opened its store in Hay St Mall back in May 2006.
Friday 8th July was the day that Borders finally closed its big fat doors. Before this enormous bookish barn was born, the shop used to belong to Angus and Robertsons. And now they are both gone. It’s sort of sad in a way but they have no one to blame but themselves. That’s what you get when you kill the goose that laid the golden egg
February was when the liquidators got called in. The Angus and Robertson shops were the first to go. Borders looked like it might get a stay of execution but that turned out to be a rather short lived thing indeed
Did the vulture thing when the book shop at the railway station started the 50% off sale. But aside from the place being packed like a tin of sardines, the sad truth was that there was just about nothing worth bothering with even with such a significant discount. As a long time lurker in libraries and at Amazon, it’s got to be good to get the silver sickles slinking out of this serpent’s wallet.
Indulged in one book about the evils of instant gratification but did not bother darkening the door after that. The place had been full of typical airport novels, self help books, romances and stacks of Stephenie Meyer stuff
A few months later was walking past their flagship store in the city centre and watched as the removalists gutted the interior and began the transformation into yet another large, cheap and nasty fashion store. Yesss. Just what dreary old Dursleyville needs more of.
But it was mid June that the serious vulture business began. The liquidators had decided to inflict the killing curse on the biggest book store the city had ever seen. Not in one instant flash of green light but death by a thousand cuts. The first of those was probably 20%. By the time the serpent sniffed out the carnage they were up to 40%. One of the junkies at the book binding class said there was a mailing list and she was on it. First in, best dressed.
( The sad slow death of a book store )
