The Changing High Street

The British High Street is changing as yet more of the big players go under with Jessops, HMV and now Blockbusters going into administration this week alone.
All three seem to be victims of internet shopping with cameras, music and films cheaper online than in any of the stores. I don't think i have ever set foot in a Jessops, my Blockbusters card went down the back of the sofa and stayed there in the last century and apart from paying for some my blank DVD's last month, HMV hasn't had a visit for as long as i can remember and certainly not to buy a CD since One Direction were still being walked to school by their mums.
Apart from the staff who will now face the joys of the unemployment office, i don't really have much affection for any of the three stores but HMV i especially have a certain amount of schadenfreude over.
When i was a kid there were a couple of local independent record stores in my high street, places you could go to listen to all sorts of music but mostly those banned copies of songs which had parental guidance stickers on the front of them.
Mostly, to a bunch of teenagers, it was a cool place to be where the ultra-cool assistant dressed like Suzi Quatro and was never too busy to show you how to play the riff to 'Too Fast For Love'.
Around the mid-80s a huge HMV store landed in the middle of the High-street, closely followed by a small Virgin store which underwent a refurbishment a few years later to double the size and become a Virgin Mega-Store which forced the small independent shops out of business.
Now the Internet has done the same thing to HMV so there may be some truth in the what goes around comes around saying.