2 minute read
Retail Randoms
by 55 North
A Jim’ll Fix It-upper
He has it all – youth, good looks, a chain of multi-award-winning convenience stores – and now it transpires that Harris Aslam is also the proud owner of the Glen Coe cottage that was once home to Britain’s most notorious nonce, Jimmy Savile.
The ramshackle property, which was owned by Saville from 1998 until his demise in 2011, has seen a fair bit of vandalism in the years since his catalogue of crimes was uncovered.
Harris, Director of Fife-based Eros Retail – which operates the Greens chain of stores in the north-east of Scotland, was blissfully unaware of the cottage’s dark history and thought he was getting a bit of a bargain. Albeit one that needed some tender loving care. A Jim’ll Fix It-upper, if you will.
One can’t imagine why the estate agent neglected to mention the cigar-chomping, gold tracksuit-wearing, kiddie-fiddling former owner at any point during the viewing. Or why the walls smelled of fresh paint so much.
Harris now plans to raze the cottage to the ground and build a state-of-the-art contemporary family home as a tribute to its other famous former owner, pioneer of the mountain rescue movement in Scotland, Dr Hamish McInnes.
Who knows, if Harris is as good at property development as he is at running shops then this could be the start of a whole new revenue stream for the retail wunderkind. We understand that Jeffrey Epstein’s old house has just come on the market…
Pizza cake
It appears that baking cakes that look like fast food is now officially a thing.
It’s been but a fortnight since The Week In Retail revealed that Asda was punting cakes that resembled buckets of fried chicken.
Now pizza chain Papa John’s is getting a slice of the action by offering a limited supply of “hyper realistic” pizza cakes to customers, although pedants would argue that a pizza tasting of strawberry jam and icing is as far removed from reality as Boris Johnson getting a decent haircut.
The move comes in celebration of PJ’s 500th store opening on Monday, in the Lancashire town of Ormskirk, which – to keep the cake theme going – is well-known for its gingerbread. So Wikipedia says anyway.
One only wonders how long it will take for someone to produce a pizza that looks like a cake. You read it here first.
Papa John's 'hyper realistic' pizza cake celebrates the company's 500th store opening in Ormskirk
