The empty shop on the corner

Transcript

Hello, this is John-Paul. I’m so pleased that I remembered to open this episode with that line.

Anyway, today was one of my Unoffice Hours days, when anyone can book some time with me and just have a chat. It’s a nice way for me to meet new people, and to see, again, people I already know. There doesn’t have to be an agenda, but I don’t mind if there is one.

It happens that I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how to build a regular, live, in-person element into my week. Something that happens face to face, and happens reliably. So that’s on my mind at the moment.

I mention it because every time I do one of these Unoffice Hours, something interesting pops into my head and becomes part of the things I’m thinking about creatively – something to play with.

Today’s person was a creative type with actual physical premises: what used to be some kind of a shop. It’s open, and members of the public step inside occasionally.

Talking to her on Zoom, and looking at the photos stuck on the wall and the books on her shelves, I was really strongly reminded of The School of Life as it was when I first started working there.

It also reminded me how wonderful it is that one of the artists I follow on Instagram, whose work I really like very much, occupies what was previously an empty shop on a street corner, just a quarter of a mile away from me.

When I first started thinking about recording this episode, I was walking past one of many empty shop buildings very near me. Well, I say many. There are, like, four empty shop buildings I can think of in the next few blocks.

And I just wondered: is this the future? I mean, if people don’t want to use shops for shops, maybe creative people should go offline and go onto the high street. Or go onto the high street and remain online. I don’t know. Just thinking.

Thank you for listening. If you have any thoughts about this, as usual, do please get in touch. There’s a link for sending me a reply on the episode homepage. Thank you.

jp at this domain name.