IN their report to the City this morning, Argos and Homebase owner Home Retail Group (HRG) have announced that they expect profits to be poor after a disappointing peak shopping period.
Compared to the previous year, like-for-like sales fell 2.2 percent at Argos in the 18 weeks to January 2.
Their report also revealed that HRG expected profits to be on the lower end of the scale, between £92m and £118m.
Yesterday, the group – who rejected a takeover bid from Sainsbury’s in November – revealed it was in advanced talks with Australian company Wesfarmers for the sale of Homebase for £340m. Discussions started back in September, and a clear offer was made in Novemeber.
Wesfarmers owns the Coles supermarket chain, as well as Australia’s largest home improvement retailer, Bunnings.
With Homebase losing out on contracts from various brands, it seems that this takeover has come at an opportune time. The details of the purchase still have to be worked out but if it were to go ahead, it would be a much needed reinvigoration of a brand that has been slowly declining.
Last week, British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s revealed they approached Home Retail Group with the intention of purchasing Argos. Yesterday they revealed that if there were to buy the retail giant, then 200 high street Argos stores would be closed, and instead moved inside nearby Sainsbury’s stores.
The supermarket group revealed that it is in talks about what they plan to do next after being rebuffed with their first offer.
Colleagues of Argos must wait patiently to hear whether this news spells dramatic change for the company.
DAVID Bowie didn’t just die. He performed his greatest work by including us all in the science-fiction spectacle that was his passing.
The Thin White Duke is, was and always will be synonymous with the word style. His profound influence on the world of music, fashion and sexuality will never again be felt in the same way. A part of me feels jealousy for those growing up in the 70’s and 80’s who witnessed him at his mesmerising best, but also a twinge of sadness, as they recognise that no other generation will understand what it meant to live life at the same time as Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane.
Eighteen months ago, Bowie learned that he was going to die after being diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer. And in true Bowie fashion, he set about his death like a playwright, dipping his feathered quill into a dark pool of ink, scratching the final scene of his life onto a crisp piece of parchment.
That quill offered us our final gift from a music legend. Blackstar was Bowie’s last album, and with it only being released three days before his untimely death, it may be his greatest.
With his first major record being Space Oddity and his last being Lazarus, he took us with him on the space adventure that was his life. In Blackstar, as the glittering, jewel-encrusted skull of the dead spaceman stunningly signifies the end of Major Tom, it is easy to see through that logic, that it was also the end of Bowie. In his final music video, we watched as he levitated from his death bed, indicative of the way that his tale will transcend his death. In the closing seconds of the scene, we see that skull once again on the table at the end of his hospital bed. In the circular narrative that was his life, Bowie played his final act beautifully. His final record was a carefully composed goodbye to us all.
His final album Blackstar is also well documented as a way people describe a cancerous mound. In true style, Bowie used this harbinger of death as a stage upon which to play his last fictional epic.
Bowie drew on the influences of fantasy and Sci-fi in order to construct inimitable personas. But it was these personas that allowed us to peer into the brilliance of the man. Living life in various guises meant he could target the crumbling world around him and fashion it into one of acceptance. His influence and will were so strong, that he drafted cultural and social progression in a time of football hooliganism and racial trauma. His brilliance was a vehicle of social change.
Just think, without Ziggy Stardust, how would the peculiar, the isolated and the confused know that they weren’t alone? Without anyone there to rip up the rules of what it meant to be, how could society be unique, adapt and fight off the stench of stagnation? Without the music videos for ‘Ashes to Ashes’ and ‘Fashion’, how would directors grow the balls to show off their eccentric creations. Without his influence, popular culture would never be the same. David Bowie was a master of breaking convention and forever spent his life swimming against the current of decided normality, even till his last days.
I read a beautiful quote the other day which succinctly puts into words what I’ve been trying to say in this entire article.
“If you’re ever sad, just remember the world is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.”
His battle with cancer may have taken him from the world, but he still lives on. With his passing, his legend will live on into forever.
We all now know, there’s a star man waiting in the sky…
ASSASSIN’S Creed Chronicles: India is now the second instalment in the trilogy of supplemental side scrolling games from Ubisoft, after 2015’s blemished but pleasurable ACC: China. With the revision of China’s primary gameplay and the addition of a few new features, it is obviously a better game than its precursor, but not by much.
In ACC: India, you control Arbaaz Mir, an Indian assassin who finds himself trapped in the war between the Sikh Empire and the East India Company in the year of 1841. Using the events of AC novel Brahman as inspiration, ACC: India’s story sees Mir try to save his girlfriend and recover a precious object, all whilst causing trouble for the dreaded Templars.
Absorbing much of ACC: China’s central gameplay, ACC: India sees Mir traversing a sequence of settings peppered with platforms, dusk-covered nooks and evil sentries. There’s a much larger prominence of stealth and covert actions in the ACC games than in any of the main games, with basic guard configurations and vision cones highlighting the safe spaces in which to dodge enemies. This, accompanied with Mir’s talents, allows the player to fashion an exit route which then lets you finish the level.
This latest instalment is the closest thing the Assassin’s Creed series has to a pure stealth game. Rapid traversal of buildings isn’t completely forgotten, and the two both work well together, with your stealth energy and abilities boosted by movement. But picking out one shining diamond in a heap of coal doesn’t do the game any favours. With sneak gameplay a welcome alternative to some fans, Chronicles India doesn’t help itself, as you often find yourself getting in your own way. Awkward controls make the game a more tedious experience than an enjoyable one and its taxing level system feels like a grind. It’s odd how the game seems to lack where China did really well, and there is nothing massively inventive that offers any incentive to pick up the game.
Another grievance is the games’ heavy reliance on instant-fail missions as a form of trial to the player. In the main games, you would recognise these as the tailing missions, where you had to follow your target without being spotted or heard. In Chronicles India however, these occur frequently and are punished by insta-death which quickly becomes grating. Initially, I felt that this was part of the level design and would only be part of the game. But as I played on, I found myself abandoning clever traversal or experimenting with different ways to complete an objective, by just scrambling to get to the end of the level so that I wouldn’t have to restart.
The gameplay becomes even more infuriating as you progress further through the fleeting five-hour campaign, as new hurdles and enemies come into play, with the ability to kill you in one hit. When this type of ‘one-hit gameplay’ is adopted early on it is easy to get to grips with, but with India, it feels like the developers have ramped up the difficulty as to extend the games short life-span. Explosive tripwires occasionally blend into the background, bringing a well worked level to an immediate and bloody stop. Those accompanied with assassin enemies hidden in the shadows of the later levels are a quick route to rage quitting the game, unless you constantly walk around with your eagle vision on. It feels like a cheap and vexing way to falsely prolong a game that had obviously run out of decent ideas.
By way of presentation, ACC: India cures the rigid sense of dull despondency that saturates Chronicles: China by inserting a brighter palette of warm colours and character anywhere it appeared promising. But the renewed sense of hope that could be perceived from its bright colours only goes on to hamper the players’ expectations. The energy granted by the pretty palette is wasted by poor level design and makes the whole experience feel cheap, especially with the one-hit KO’s. Even though the foundation of the game is solid, in aspect to the stealth focus that it carries off pretty well, Assassins Creed Chronicles: India isn’t the game that we were hoping it to be. With too many annoying gameplay peeves, the game finds too many ways to keep players from really appreciating it.
AS part of my news week in university, I covered a story on the Manchester United Foundation annual Santa Run and how people were raising money for their respective charities.
I interviewed a leading member of the 5 Boroughs NHS Partnership Trust and how she and her colleagues plan to run and raise money. Click here to be magically transported to the Quays News website and give it a read!
BACK in December, the north of England was battered by torrential rain and winds, causing millions of pounds worth of damage to local infrastructure, houses and the economy.
I wrote this story during my University News Week and it was published to the Quaysnews.net website.
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