This is Ikea in Gateshead: where better to spend a Sunday afternoon?!

This is the Killingworth Centre, in the centre of Killingworth, built in 2000. As this picture shows, it’s not the most happening place on a Saturday night, but it was certainly a quiet time to get the groceries!

Sainsbury’s PR operation tweeted today that it had become the UK’s second biggest online food retailer, with 165,000 orders per week. I thought, “Wow, that’s impressive, it must have beaten Asda into third place!”

To confirm this thought, I clicked through to their full PR puff piece. This is one of the worst bits of PR guff I have read to date.

It starts off by reporting the genuinely impressive news of 20% year-on-year online sales growth – no mean feat in a recession – and it’s impressive position as second in a hyper-competitive marketplace. Fantastic.

But, before the end of the second paragraph, it goes off on an utterly ludicrous tangent, and starts talking about a meaningless customer service survey. Sainsbury’s has commissioned MORI to poll people on the supermarket whose customer service they prefer, and they happily report that Sainsbury’s comes out on top.

But the sample is patently absurd: 912 Sainsbury’s shoppers, 400 Tesco shoppers, 400 Asda shoppers, and 200 Ocado shoppers. It doesn’t take a much of a leap to assume that most people will shop at the supermarket they prefer, so it would’ve been frankly astonishing if survey of a group constituted of mainly Sainsbury’s shoppers didn’t rank Sainsbury’s highest on a number of cherry-picked metrics. Equally unsurprising is the news that Ocado, with the smallest number of customers in the survey, comes bottom on each metric.

Of course, this is the sort of nonsense psuedo-science that PR offices pump out daily, and there are countless examples of the form. But the point here is that Sainsbury’s PR have managed to lump together some genuinely impressive figures with some unimpressive crap, and actually left me feeling less positive about the brand. This story is newsworthy without the tacked-on nonsense, which adds nothing to genuinely contextualise the results, and actually detracts from the key message.

On reflection, perhaps this isn’t the best thing to have sitting next to my laptop while I’m doing Public Health work. At least it’s short…!

This bizarre flower display thingy (that may not be the technical term) at Wellington Square in Stockton used to be Wendy’s favourite flower display thingy in the whole of Stockton. This wasn’t because it was only a short walk from our house, but was mainly due to the large clusters of amusingly amorous pigeons which used to congregate upon it. Sadly, none were around today when I was taking this photo!

Waitrose sent this card to me a few weeks ago, yet I really don’t understand what its point is. The literature that accompanied it told me that I should scan it each time I shop (aka volunteering my data), but didn’t explain what I could expect in return, beyond vague statements like “more of what you love”.

Even having been on their website, I still don’t understand how it’s supposed to benefit me. And beyond that, given the infrequency with which I shop at Waitrose, I don’t really understand why I got it in the first instance. It’s really not the kind of transparent communication I expect from the John Lewis Partnership.

It’s the least well explained “loyalty” scheme I’ve ever encountered, and since I don’t understand what I’m exchanging my data for, the card won’t be jumping into my wallet just yet!

Whoever has the slightly dull task of writing business continuity plans for WHSmith branches might want to revisit their work tomorrow morning: this large two-floor branch in one of Britain’s biggest shopping centres is completely closed today. Frustratingly, they haven’t even managed to point out in their “Sorry” notices that the centre’s other branch is open as usual.

In stranger news, just days after I suggested that the shopping centre across the river should invest in a Flight-Stop-esque artwork, look what turns up at the Metrocentre:

Morrisons in Killingworth seem a little over excited by their use of CCTV.

Not only does WHSmith appear to have Hallowe’en stock prominently displayed on exactly three months after the event, they’re also charging a whopping 69p for a Creme Egg! Needless to say, I didn’t partake!

This is the fairly impressive roof of Eldon Garden, which is marred by the 80s decor which consists mainly of arched mirrors, presumably to try and make the space look lighter. Given the arty reputation Eldon Garden tries to create for itself, I reckon it would look great with a bit of a renovation and a hanging artwork – something like a mini version of Snow’s Flight Stop in Toronto – but something more local to Newcastle, of course, and perhaps more in keeping with the wrought iron supports.