It's store wars, so fight your corner

LOCAL shopkeepers can rest easy, everything is going to come up a bed of roses – from henceforth shoppers will pick up their string bags of yore and skip gaily down to the butcher, baker and candlestick maker, while swallows soar and butterflies flutter in the wild meadows. Kids will ask for some potatoes out of a sack, a quarter of sliced ham, oh, and some Izal toilet paper to play the comb on.

You see, the Competition Commission is going to make it tougher for supermarkets, those purveyors of evil low prices, excessive choice and nasty PC trends such as tomatoes on the vine, organic cress and decomposing plastic bags.

Then again most people might just live in the real world, jump in their car, drive half a mile or five to the nearest supermarket so they can park their car without fear of a fine, save pounds on their weekly grocery bill and, hey, be able to get practically everything under one roof without getting wet or standing on dog's mess.

Which would you choose? Well I choose both actually, and I don't think I'm much different from the average punter.

I love and value the corner shop – but oh, how they have had to change to survive, now open all hours selling the vital necessities with a few bargains if you have an eye for them. The usually pleasant chatter with a familiar face is a comfort to us human beings that feel the world is too big and brash a place – but for all that we love a bargain, and the corner shop struggles to deliver those across the range.

I love and value the local high street shops that specialise in meat, fish, cheese, baking and, of course, the delis. But they can never afford to forget that specialisation means a discerning and interesting range of high quality fayre. Sadly, too few of our local high street shops have moved with the times and I can name the few butchers, fishmongers, greengrocers and cheesemongers that I think qualify for this premium standard – in a large city such as Edinburgh it's too few to be proud of.

I love and value the supermarkets, recognising they are not all the same, and indeed even vary from store to store within the same company. They not only fight it out to give me reductions that stretch my budget, they anticipate my tastes by constantly trying new lines that I've struggled to obtain in the past. They respond quickly to social changes – just look at all the Polish foods they've brought in or how they are jam-packed full of Fairtrade this and organic that. They are politically correct to the point of driving me away, but still I go back.

And why? Not just because of the long list of positives that I could list – but because they are car-friendly and make my life easier. The enemy of the small shop is not the supermarket but the councils that literally drive shoppers away from the high street and into multi-storey malls.

It is no coincidence that the best local shops exist grouped together in Stockbridge, Morningside and Junction Street for instance, where they can get enough footfall – often from supermarket car parks!

To shop owners I say forget the Competition Commission, it's the council you need to convince. Free parking, more parking spaces and less blisters, bumps and bollards will bring you more customers. Without that you are left with street-walkers – and there's only so much a string bag will hold.

A no-score draw
So that great Brazilian footballer Ronaldo has found himself with three prostitutes that turned out to be men pretending to be women.

In a country where prostitution is not a crime he has done no wrong – but he has scored the best own goal in years. Just look at these headlines from across the world: "Ronaldo's crying game tranny shame" (news.com.au), "What a balls-up" (The Standard, Hong Kong), "Star's delusions of gender" (The Age), "Drag for Ronaldo" (Canoe.ca) and "Three Ronaldo girls all had men's tackle" (The London Times)

But the best had to come from your very own Edinburgh Evening News: "Ron's an AC-DC Milan ace now". Someone deserves a medal.

Potty politics
Eight years ago an often-potty left-winger won the Mayorship of London because he was well known and was not Tony Blair.

He was a personality. He said in his manifesto he would only stand for one term because once elected it would be very difficult for the incumbent to lose. Four years later he stood for re-election and won, this time as the official Labour candidate. That man is Ken Livingston.

Last night it was too close to call. If that often-potty right-winger, Boris Johnson, wins it is because he is well known and is not David Cameron (or Gordon Brown). He's a personality. The Tories should not read too much into the London mayoral result – unless they are prepared to make Boris the leader!