So all the shops up North are now empty (and not just Ugo Stores, according to the papers). I wouldn’t know from personal experience because PR girls are temperamentally unsuited to travel north of, well, Camden really, but it shows how the recession has hit places like Bedford or Luton.

I suspect that every spare penny of disposable income is being spent on pies. That’s the only justification for a £20m price tag on Holland’s. Anyhow, £82bn of online sales have got to come from somewhere and people have clearly reached a shopping limit where there’s just nothing extra they need “except apparently for handbags, shoes, frocks and scent”, as daddy repeatedly says to me and mummy.

Like everyone else in PR, I have spent the last month cutting down. The great January booze drought is now something of an institution in an industry where you get a liver transplant instead of a gold watch. I’m happy to report that every Monday and Wednesday has been drink-free (during daylight hours). It did lead to an unhealthy increase in tea consumption and the resulting realisation that most tea is brown, warm and not much more.

One of the tasks clients occasionally lob our way (usually when their ad agency has told them where to go) is to help create products for PR purposes. It’s often a range extension that won’t sell much, but is so quirky or unexpected that it will whip up a decent amount of publicity.

I think we may have hit the jackpot though with our suggestion for the new PG Tips Special Moments range, where each tea is this or that ‘One’. Stand by for the launch of The One That Tastes Like PG Tips Used To.