Sparrow & Woolworth

Listening to BBC Radio Four as I began to awaken from my nightly slumber this morning, a piece about our house sparrow interested me. This once ubiquitous little bird has suffered a marked decline in numbers throughout the British Isles. The principal reason seems to be the diminishing number of gardens; particularly the substitution of gardens with decking, concrete or tarmac. This is something that never struck me.

We do still have visiting sparrows to our garden; although I have seen hardly any, at all, this autumn. Our most frequent visitors are goldfinches, due to the njger seeds I feed them!

Moving on to another topic, and fallout from the Credit Crunch, I hear that Woolworth's department store chain wishes to sell its stores for the nominal sum of one pound. Their owner must be desperate to get rid of them for the funds.

One pre-Christmas measure being taken today by Marks and Spencer is to reduce the price of everything, except food, by twenty per cent in an effort to generate sales.