I want briefly to mention a thought that crossed my mind yesterday. Carlow's population is just shy of seventeen and a half thousand people. There is probably one home furnishing store for every two families (or so it seems). All have reduced prices to the point that proprietors are nearly giving you cash and one of their children in order to encourage a shift of their stock: sales that reek of 'last ditch effort'.
The answer to this is simple: Noone has any money, their stock is shite and everyone has everything they need anyway.
What do you think this means for the out of town shopping malls which are still insisting on mushrooming around the edges of a town for whom the word bijoux might have been invented?
Just a thought.
