Recessionary Walk (No.1)

Last week's talk of green shoots appears nipped in the bud by a late Spring frost.

Yesterday's sharp fall, for the second quarter in a row, of GDP (which was worse than expected at -1.9% against predications of -1.5/1.6%) was as though to chuck oil on a raging fire set - in this instance set alight by the most gloom laiden budget for years.

A walk through SE1 this afternoon to catch some warm Spring sun illustrates how the figures are baring out on the streets.

The trendy wine shop on the corner of Tower Bridge Road and Southwark Park Road lasted a little over 6 months, replaced with a cheap end of lines clothing store. Truth be told, only so much expensive Cabernet Sauvignon was ever going to grace the glasses of the beer drinking folk of Bermondsey.

Coffee shops - Sobo and Coffee@BermondseyStreet are empty; the pubs on Tower Bridge Road quiet.

The boutiques on Bermondsey Street look decidedly starved of custom; this despite the new boutique hotel just opened on the Square sprinkled with Europeans spending weakened pounds with their strong Euro.

As though to compound a feeling of general malaise, Thames Water continue to dig in on their battle to replace 1000 miles of watermain by 2010 everywhere one walks. But then we are all in one big hole, aren't we?