The high street is doomed? Tell that to the people queuing outside Primark Gaby Hinsliff
over 4 years in The guardian
We are rediscovering shopping as a social activity under Covid restrictions – but only the government can give retail a chance
When all this is over, what I want more than anything else is to be in a crowd. Any crowd, really. Parties would be the dream; a joyfully sweaty crush with barely room to reach the bar, and the promise of drunken dancing to follow. But at this stage, even the collective hush when the lights dim in a packed cinema would do. Lately I’ve even been feeling unexpected pangs of nostalgia for the tube at rush hour. It’s not the feeling of being rammed into a stranger’s armpit but the people-watching, the eavesdropping on strangers’ conversations, the bustle, the life you miss. Yet even with the vaccine coming, it may be months before much of this is wise. So for now, the safest substitute available to most of us is going shopping. Just mooching from store to store under the twinkly Christmas lights, chatting to a friend, in a way I’d mostly given up before the pandemic.
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