Tracee called Aarati in a panic last evening asking for her advice. It appears that she had parked up outside a church to buy chips for her tea, looked up and saw a large poster on the wall of the building that said, 'The wages of sin is death'. She instantly called her cousin, Skylark, who, it is reported, is of the opinion that the wages of sin is £45 an hour, and she wanted to warn her. Skylark was out and Tracee wanted some advice on how best to handle the situation.
Aarati's advice was the same as ours is to Peter Cowgill executive chair of J D Sports, the one remaining suitor of that other tired out old has-been, Debenhams. Forget what people think and do what you want. If our mate Pete thinks that the 124 shop shoe fits he should slip it on and fill all of them to the brim with sports stuff. J D were unavailable for comment this morning as they are holed up with Lazards and FRP Advisory talking numbers and chewing the fat. They wouldn't even be interrupted to take the call of a certain Mr Ashley who is still spitting blood over being overlooked at this (surely?) final stage in the bid proceedings.
Let's be fair, Debenhams is not only destined for the scrapheap, it has driven through the scrapheap gates, climbed one of its less precipitous slopes, perched on top of the summit and counted to three before launching itself into the air. It would be a relief to the retail sector if a deal could be done, in the same way as it would be for the 95 year old woman who is parked outside Brad Pitt's house to hear that he is single again. She may not stand much of a chance, but there is the tiniest glimmer of desperate hope in a black sea of oblivion.
There isn't any new news around this story, as both J D and Debenhams have declined to comment, but a week without the word 'Debenhams' in the heading of one of our news stories would be breaking a key covenant in the lease of our two room offices (if you count the shared loo) in Tower Hamlets and we cannot afford to move again as Billy's friend Des has swapped his Transit van for a Covid-19 vaccine he saw online called 'Spuntik', and plans to inhale it tonight.
