Monthly Archives: February 2010

Feb 16 2010

Justice – Crown Court or Twitter?

Last week, from humble beginnings an amazing story grew out of the social media revolution.

Etsy - by The Hidden Eloise


A brilliant artist under the Moniker “The Hidden World of Eloise” noticed that Paperchase were using some of her images in their range of goods. Clearly plagiarised. It seems she wrote to the Company who ignored her. She faced a choice – sue them with the obligatory legal bill and uncertainty in the County Court. Or ‘blog’ and ‘twitter’ about it.

The story is now reasonably well documented, but her blog post was picked up on Twitter and re-tweeted around the world. The story spread like wildfire!

As I write this, it seems that Paperchase have chosen the Ostrich approach to this PR. It is difficult to understand how they think they will ‘win’. Their web site suggests – “Paperchase is the undisputed brand leader in design lead and innovative stationery in the UK.” I think they mean ‘design led’? Or at least ‘led by someone else’s designs’.

Surely, they must realise that the damage being done to them by twitterers and bloggers around the globe is huge.

To some extent the original ‘crime’ could have been quickly dealt with; instead the lack of a response might finish off this brand. I will certainly think twice about going into the shop. They don’t have much I really want, but they have made a foray onto the High Street. I am unhappy that they think they can steal someones work and then ignore them when they point it out. They don’t deserve a loyal customer base.

Perhaps someone ought to take them to one side, quickly – and get them to eat a ton of humble pie and give a ton of cash to Eloise – wherever she is hidden? She has actually suggested that they give some money to charity…

We live in a new age – the Court has rules which are designed to filter out spurious claims – and make sure parties who have disputes try and settle them without recourse to them. Twitter and blogging, on the other hand, is pretty much unregulated and truly is a people power medium.

There are two key messages here. Firstly, never hide anything from the public (especially if it is damaging) and secondly, don’t underestimate consumers – they don’t like corporations v ordinary people disputes.

UPDATE 17.2.10

Paperchase original on the right....


It seems that Paperchase have decided to ‘come clean’. Although I am not entirely convinced that their published apology is quite good enough. It does read as though this is everyone else’s fault. I think the damage done. Will we forgive an forget? – thought not!

Lesson three – when you have been caught and decide to ‘apologise’ make sure it sounds genuine and sincere and put it on the front page of your web site – not buried in the ‘contact us’ section!

I think they need some help on branding (and how not to train-crash one) – I will put them in touch with my mate John Lyle.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering – the statement that the work, “was definitely not based on Hidden Eloise’s” might not really stand up to much scrutiny by the man on the Clapham Omnibus!

UPDATE 28 February 2010

Have a look at Hidden Eloise’s latest post about this mess! I am not sure that those responsible for stealing the designs are really doing themselves any favours! I started my blog-post to draw attention to the David & Goliath story – and to highlight how not to do PR! Not much seems to have changed!

I always thought (and was taught) that a mistake can actually be turned into positive PR – by doing the right thing and winning the customers back! See this article. Paperchase and Gathernomoss take note!! And dirty tricks won’t really help – especially if you leave your fingerprints all over email comments – and you get traced back to Paperchase!

Feb 16 2010

Free parking for shoppers?

I did some work in Carlton, on the outskirts of Nottingham last week. I was somewhat irritated when I go there to discover I had to pay to park in a local shoppers car park. 50p won’t break the bank – but that’s not the point. The car park was virtually empty – shoppers apparently have been pushed onto the nearby streets.

Please empty your pockets - not in the shops though....


My frustration is even greater as I actually ‘sold’ much of the land on behalf of the owners to Gedling Borough Council around 10 years ago to create the car park. My recollection is that we ‘sold’ that land at a very reduced rate to enable to construction of the car park – to benefit the shops. Unfortunately I can’t track the file down… it might help in pointing out some of the reasons we were told they needed the land ‘cheap’

It is ironic that visiting the shops which ‘owned’ the land I now have to pay! I wonder if the Council have noticed the number of vacant shops? We are supposed to make peoples lives easier?

The car park was to help the shop-keepers. I struggle to see what sense there is in charging – unless it is for easy income? But then collecting 50p’s, counting and banking them can hardly be cost effective. This is where the world has gone quite mad.

Apparently Roland Spencer, leader of the Conservative council, said he believed charges would help shops, as they could cut the amount of time cars were parked, freeing more spaces and increasing custom. There were certainly free spaces. Great idea Mr Spencer. There was some coverage recently in the local press here. We should have known it was the internets fault.

I then came across a ‘manifesto for the high street‘ being promoted by Retail Week. They are promoting a ten point charter to try to help retailers.

The ten points are:

1. Provide Free Parking for shoppers
2. Put a freeze on additional taxes for shops
3. Take retail crime seriously
4. Manage infrastructure works better
5. Compel landlords to contribute to Business Improvement Districts
6. Reinvent the High Street as a multichannel destination
7. Create an identity
8. Work in partnership with Independent retailers
9. Clear up clutter
10. Keep an eye on things.

Like most great ideas / campaigns it’s the simple things that can help. I like some of the suggestions – especially point 1…

We should try to help shops – not hinder them.

Feb 15 2010

Nottingham Tram – part two

I went on a tram on Sunday – for the second time since they were introduced in 2004.

I went on both of these trams - not at the same time....


The first time was to a gig. Difficult to believe, but I saw Glenn Tilbrook, of Squeeze fame. This was a part of the Goose Fringe in October 2005! He was brilliant (I have seen him a few times – with and without Chris Difford. Both guys are very talented singer-songwriters.

My second trip this week was as a result of being in the vicinity of Wilkinson Street – after having dropped my mum off at her sisters. We decided to try the tram as we were heading the Nottingham Contemporary – see my previous blog here.

What I didn’t quite appreciate was the fare – £2.70 each. I accept that this is a single fare for the whole of the line – so if you are commuting from Hucknall this is great value. But my alternative was to park in Fletcher Gate car park where 3 hours would have cost me £4.50. Our son had threatened to come with us (but backed down on hearing we were doing art – ‘mid life crisis stuff’) – this would have made the trip rather expensive.

My other issue is that the tram is not really near where I live – so having returned to the park and ride I had to drive home (about the same distance as from my house to town).

Public transport does have a really important place in the success of a city – but it needs to be affordable. My New York subway ticket is $2 (less when I buy a carnet) – cheaper than Nottingham. Perhaps as they carry so many more people, but cheap enough to make you use it. I am not sure that having three staff (accepting the driver is essential!) with two fare collectors is economically viable! Perhaps they need this as fare dodging is apparently a problem.

I’m not sure I will be in a hurry to get back on the tram; if I do, I will take some Lynx for the man who sat next to me. He must have forgotten his when he dressed in the morning…

Feb 14 2010

Its only another Billion….

I heard a fascinating analogy a few days ago. It concerned our perception of ‘numbers’. The question was two-fold. Firstly, how long is a million seconds. Then, how long is a billion seconds.

If only we owed this much....


Not much difference really?

Well – a million seconds is 11.5 days approximately. A billion is 32.5 YEARS!

So when you read in the ONS that the UK borrowed £15.7bn in December 2009 – it would be an understatement to say that this is a shed load of wonga. Put another way every second (in December) the UK borrowed £5,861….

We seem to have become used to this subtle change in language from a million to a billion. The UK borrowings now stand at at £870bn at the end of December 2009. Alternatively this is £14,169 per person in the UK – from babies to old ladies and everyone in between.

A billion rolls off the tongue just as easily as a million.

I hope whoever we borrowed it off doesn’t want it back anytime soon. We are as a nation apparently all in debt by £33,000 each according to the Telegraph! This ignores what the Government have borrowed on your behalf…

Time for a reality check?

UPDATE 17 FEBRUARY

It seems we are a bit more in debt that we thought. We have moved from billions to trillions. £1.46 Trillions.

So my million and billion seconds story needs changing a bit.

A million seconds – 1.5 days, a billion seconds – 32.5 years and now a trillion seconds is … 31,688 years.

UPDATE 23 February 2010

Just another little snippet of information!

Google handles 34,000 searches per second – or 2 million per minute; 121 million per hour; 3 billion per day; 88 billion per month….

Feb 13 2010

Southside Nottingham will be a key MIPIM promotion

As MIPIM approaches the strategy for what Nottingham will be marketing to the world investment market is coming into focus.

Nottingham Southside


One of the up and coming locations in the City is Southside – an area centred on the Station. Nottingham City Council are to relocate to Loxley House and they are in good company with Capital One, Shoosmiths and the Inland Revenue all neighbours there already.

There are a number of schemes in the pipeline too – which will be really exciting once the Tram extension commences and connects fully with Nottingham Station.

Wilson Bowden have the Sentinel scheme to promote (100,000 sq ft), Peel Holdings have 200,000 sq ft at Unity Square, which includes offices, a hotel and retail / leisure space. Bildurn are creating a 200,000 sq ft scheme on Station Street. Southreef have 45,000 sq ft and Lace Market Properties have 55,000 sq ft at the Meadows Gateway.

Altogether there will be over 1m sq ft of high quality, well located business space on stream. This really is a great location – and will regenerate this side of the City. It is well serviced by the road infrastructure, has the station at its heart and has Nottingham Canal running through it. Nottingham Regeneration Limited – of which I am a Director, are central to the promotion push. It is one of the three areas which forms the platform for regeneration focus in Nottingham.

MIPIM will be providing the platform to win new investors and possibly occupiers for this stock. “Team Nottingham” are fired up with enthusiasm for the schemes – some of which are architecturally great!

Invest in Nottingham will be blogging from the show – there is a link on my blog – in the right hand bar! With just over four weeks to go, there is considerable interest already.

If you are going to MIPIM – or want some details on the schemes in Southside, let me know! my easiest contact is via my work email tgarratt@innes-england.com

Feb 12 2010

Nottingham Contemporary – take 2

I woke up yesterday to the dulcet tones of the Today Programme on Radio 4 – to hear all about Nottingham Contemporary. It seems that the second exhibition – which opens today has attracted national coverage!

My hero (until Buzz arrived) - Yuri Gagarin


I might still have my doubts about the architecture as I have blogged about before. But I cannot deny that if the budget figures of 5,000 visitors for the opening exhibition are a genuine test of success then that is what it was. A huge success – with 18,000 people going to see the Hockney exhibition.

But the next exhibition might be more of a challenge. For the next twelve weeks we have ‘Star City‘. Which is a retrospective about the space race with emphasis on the communist approach n the early 1960′s. Evidently we have some soviet propaganda posters of Yuri Gagarin – who sounded such a hero when I was a kid. (This is despite the fact he made his historic mission the year before I was born!)

Both Graham Chapman, Deputy leader of the Council and Alex Farquharson, Director at the Gallery were interviewed and asked whether Nottingham Contemporary had contributed to the regeneration of the City. The consensus was ‘yes’. Arguing that people were being drawn to this part of the city again and that those visitors included young folks were two reasons that this was a success. That there has been a buzz was quoted too.

The city has much to be proud of and this facility adds to a really good offer.

We next need to work on the Robin Hood story – which can fit nicely with art. To that end I am seeing the Sheriff of Nottingham again next week to see what progress we can make – principally to capitalise on the new film…

Watch this space!! And go and see the Contemporary – if you do let me know what you think! The food is great….

UPDATE 14 FEBRUARY

We did visit the Gallery today to see the exhibition. It is certainly interesting – I particularly enjoyed some of the films.

Elsewhere 2008 : Micol Assael - at Nottingham Contemporary

If I am honest I didn’t enjoy it as much as Hockney – some of the art is more challenging! In the same way that I struggle with some of Tracey Emin’s work – there was some stuff here that had the same questionable art credibility (the blank sheet of white paper?). It was interesting to see the Russian posters form the 1960′s – they do have a certain ‘style’. It was a time when the USSR was painting a very positive picture of the space race – which they effectively won with the launch of Sputnik. The full scale model is fascinating – it is tiny! Some of the propaganda films are interesting too – ‘spin’ in the 1960′s.

We did manage lunch in the Cafe – great food at a reasonable price. I love my chips in a bean can!

Feb 11 2010

The investment market – on the up in 2010?

About a month ago, I blogged about the market in 2009. My position was that there might be some opportunities for investment.

The BBC in Nottingham - sold in 2009


Interestingly PropertyData have just released the January 2010 figures and it looks as though there has been some improvement. The research suggests 1.146bn of property was sold in the first month of 2010 compared to £766m in January 2009. We still have some way to go to get back to 2006 levels when £3.695bn of property was transacted in the January!

Perhaps more interestingly is the compression in yield – i.e the increase in pricing. Although something of a ‘crude’ measure it is possible to measure the ‘all property yields’. This simply groups all property types and calculates the return in percentage terms. It can then be used as a comparison against other investment products.

The figures:

last 12 months – 7.2%
last 6 months – 7.03%
last 3 months – 6.85%
last 1 month – 6.68%

There is a move towards investing back in property….

Prices are still attractive when you consider rates for cash at the bank!

You might also have been slightly concerned had you invested monies in Toyota ‘blue chip’ shares which have fallen 16% in the last few weeks with the news of recalls to various cars…

Property – safe as houses?

Feb 10 2010

East Midlands market knowledge

This morning my firm launched our third annual ‘insight’ into the state of the market – up to the end of 2009.

Over the next three days we will get around 500 people in Nottingham, Derby and Leicester to see the results of our research – which is not based on some theory, but rather real data. It is interpreted by people who work in the market day in day out.

So, what of the market-place?

According to Experian, “Despite prospects for UK annual average growth being well below its long-term average, Derby, Leicester and Nottingham may prove to have more resilience, thanks to their diverse services sector.”

Sadia Sheikh went on to say that tourism is important for Nottingham. We do need to capitalise on Robin Hood!

And, in the introduction by Managing Director, Robert Hartley, he said, “The view is that the next 12 months will remain difficult, with only weak economic growth and the inevitable election giving people ‘food for thought’. The prediction is for owner occupier markets to be challenging. However, there are the first signs of developers and house builders renewing interest in sensibly priced opportunities in a market that saw little activity in 2009.”

I blogged this week about Nottingham City Councils move to Loxley House and our research showed that this 213,000 sq ft acquisition skewed the figures in 2009 – accounting for nearly 50% of the office floorspace taken up!

As for rents in Nottingham:

Offices – prime rents have remained consistently at just shy of £20 psf
Industrial – prime have slipped back below £6 psf and are now at 2006 levels
Retail – High Street – prime have slipped back to around £225 Zone A – from a high of over £250
Retail – out of town – fairly flat for ope A1 use at around £30 psf

For more details of the figures – and of those for Derby & Leicester you can email me at the office – tgarratt@innes-england.com . I will happily send you a copy of the research.

The final speaker was Mark Chandler from Lloyds. He had some interesting figures – they lent more in Q4 2009 than they have ever lent! There was also an interesting nugget that the LTV (loan to value) is no longer the primary test for a commercial property loan. Lloyds are looking at affordability first – the ability to service the debt has become the primary consideration.

So my overall take – there has been a shift downwards, but we have fared much better as a City than some other places. We are well placed to take advantage of the upturn – which will surely come…

Feb 9 2010

Cheap travel to MIPIM 2010?

Last year I bought a bike – a nice bike. It’s made mostly of carbon fibre and weighs a lot less than me!

I would need to cycle around it - I think!


For a brief few moments I had thought about cycling to Cannes – there has been an organised trip arranged for the last few years. But, my training went a little to pieces when the bad weather came – and the realisation that the 1000 miles or so, was a bit further than my 45 mile training trips!

I have nothing but admiration for Jon Collins (leader of Nottingham City Council) and Nigel Turpin (Head of Urban Design) who have decided that the plane fare is just too much – and are cycling from the Market Square to Cannes! The story is here on the Nottingham at MIPIM website!

They are raising money on the Nottingham to London leg for Maggie’s – who would like to build a new £3m centre in Nottingham.

There is no doubt that this is a fantastic cause and Jon & Nigel are going to need all the support they can get – they will no doubt raise Nottingham profile!

In the meantime, I have decided that I should fly! I did consider taking the train, but some of my colleagues from NRL did that two years ago and survived on a Cornish Pastie between them over the 18 hour journey. Thats sounds about as dangerous for me as riding a bike over the alps!

I have been asked to join a group of cyclists to accompany Jon & Nigel from the Market Square for the first few miles. I thought I could probably manage to Clifton ….

Feb 9 2010

The walk of fame – in Nottingham

There was some great coverage yesterday of the Walk of Fame in Tinseltown – centred around the fact that it celebrates its 50th year and Ringo Starr was about to become the 2,401st celebrity to be immortalised in a paving slab.

Michael Jackson - at the walk of Fame


It turns out that the first was Stanley Kramer back in 1960. Since then the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce have ‘managed’ the whole process and now charge $25,000 for each little square of marble with brass inlay. The whole walk now stretches over 3.5 miles!

I actually visited the walk of Fame when I was in the USA with the Sheriff of Nottingham last September. You might have seen previous blogs about the trip. The summary is here.

One of the ideas we had was to have a Walk of Fame in Nottingham – accepting that this would be on a smaller scale…

But we have some great people who were either born or spent their working lives here – they each tell part of the Nottingham story.

Some candidates:

Sir Paul Smith – fashionista
Jessee Boot – pharmacy
Robin Hood – good bloke
Lord Byron – poet
D H Lawrence – author
Su Pollard – actress
Richard Beckinsale – actor
Leslie Crowther – TV personality
Jane Torvill & Christopher Dean (one each I think!) – skaters
Stella Rimington – MI5

There are lots of others – but wouldn’t it be fun and entertaining to get this started?

And as Paul McCartney doesn’t have his star in Hollywood I am sure we could let him have one here – just so long as he doesn’t mention football?