I’ve always liked TICT chairman David Carter-Johnson, best known until recently for being CEO of Adams, and I like him even more since he introduced me as the “ever-suave” editor of Retail Week this morning. I have a stinking cold today and actually feel anything but suave but the thought was nice. We were talking about private equity with Debenhams chairman and serial dealmaker John Lovering, and Peacocks very likeable boss Richard Kirk, and had a really good discussion.

As always it was all off-record but there was a healthy debate about the merits of private equity, and about the potential for exits next year. Lots of PE-backed retailers, led by New Look and Pets at Home, are gearing up to float next year, but while they should succeed as long as consumer spending holds up, it may be that the valuations managements attach to some retailers turn out to be ambitious when they come to exit.

I was going to post yesterday on this article from the Guardian about Waterstones from Tuesday. I have to be a bit careful seeing as we’re half-owned by the Guardian  but I’m no fan of the liberal hypocrisy on which it is built - it always amused me that its leading leftie columnist sent her daughter to the same private school in south London as me. Do as I say, not as I do. The Waterstones assualt is the worst example I’ve seen to date of the book world not realising that book retailers operate in the real world.

The fact is that Waterstones is the last show in town. The Guardian may well sneer - as it did in a picture used to illustrate the print version of the feature - at the sight of loads of shoppers at Lakeside queueing up to get a signed copy of Katie Price’s book, but that’s what Lakeside book shoppers want to buy. That Waterstones retains any presence as a serious high street bookseller is an achievement in iteself - look what’s happening to Borders - and if the book world had any sense they’d get behind it. Otherwise WH Smith, Amazon and Tesco will get the mass market on a plate, and speciality bookselling on the high street will die.

I’m missing the big night tonight but apparently there are far fewer parties this year. Indeed the legendary agent, Sports Direct director, Spurs fan and all-round bon viveur Malcolm Dalgleish told me he doesn’t have any invitations until the Land Securities party, which - showing that some things don’t change - doesn’t start until 11pm. Times have definitely changed, although I suspect the bar of the Midland will still be doing a very healthy trade tonight, it certainly was last night.

Although one or two of the main players cut back on their stands this year, nearly all the usual suspects were there in force and over 2,000 delegates was an excellent turnout for the BCSC, headed by the indefatigable Michael Green. They got the tone just right, with the conference introduced by the development director of John Lewis, Jeremy Collins, who is very, erm, John Lewis, and chaired by the very John Lewis former chairman of the John Lewis Partnership Sir Stuart Hampson.

JLP is certainly the bridge between the property and retail sectors, helped of course by the fact they generally don’t have to worry about the minor matter of paying rent. I sat down with Jeremy last night and interestingly he accepted that the model is likely to have to change when the development market comes back - “we’re going to have to meet in the middle” he said, which was an interesting recognition that the shopping centre world is not going to go back to what it was.

The speeches this morning were pretty sobering stuff. Michael Portillo was as urbane and funny as you’d expect but was also as gloomy as anyone I’ve heard on the economic prospects for next year, while as the sole retailer on the programme Peter Williams did a good job of getting the industry’s messages across to the property world. You can read my story on their speeches here and my column on the conference here.

The company’s chief executive Geoff Quinn is notable for two things - firstly, as every article written about him always says, is that he left school with one O-Level in pottery, and secondly that if his retail career ever falls upon hard times, he could easily forge a career as a double for Tony Blair, as his looks and mannerisms are uncannily similar. The company’s FD Mike Trotman is a nice bloke, and lives round the corner from me in Herne Hill (although in a much nicer street than me, naturally). Mike, who used to be FD at Hobbs,  does a good impression of being pleased to see me when we bump into each other on the train, as we occasionally do.

The question I’d like to ask Geoff is not about his O level in pottery, however, but when his business last sold a shirt at full price. I popped into their Kings Road branch yesterday on my way to the Bridge (Chelsea beat Man U 1-0 in case you’d not noticed) and their addiction to 3 for 2 offers, half price on everything and all the rest would make even Debenhams blush. Hawes & Curtis down the road was the same.

It all seems to be doing a good job in shifting shirts, but the concept of a Jermyn Street shirt must be being devalued with the cut-throat battle going on between these companies. Still, it’s delivering results for the owners and that’s what matters to them, and also means that men who might othwerwise shop at M&S end up sporting a rather smarter shirt.

On the way to Manchester for the annual retail property jamboree, the British Council of Shopping Centres. It’s the only event I know where you get invitations to Tuesday night parties which start at 11pm. Times must be changing for the pastel-shirted men from Mayfair, as I’ve seen a load of well-known agents trudging down the platform to second class, which would never have happenned in the old days. I’ll report back tomorrow.

I must admit I fell for it. There’s a Pret opposite our office next door to a Sainsbury’s, and I laboured for a long time under the illusion that because Pret is nice and cuddly and uses lots of clever marketing guru-ish language that, for example, its meat might be free range, or at least be produced in the UK. Whereas credit to JS, its convenience store experience might be pretty grim but at least all the meat in their sandwiches is British, and that generally means higher welfare standards. Good on them - I have bought my sandwich there today. Although actually it was a vegetarian one anyway.

“Son of Woolworths” Alworths opened for the first time yesterday in Didcot. Nicola went down and apparently the staff did the conga round the store to “Is this the way to Amarillo” before it opened. Good luck to them but I can’t see Alworths working. What’s the point of reinventing something which failed, particularly as all the best ex-Woolies stores will now have been taken by other retailers? As one very sage poster on our site said a couple of weeks ago, “The son of Woolworths already exists - it’s called Wilkinson.” Couldn’t have put it better.

No wonder there was such a good turnout as Bond is really establishing himself as one of the hottest talents in UK retailing and a real thought-leader on how to run a big consumer facing business. I can’t talk about the speech as the event is under Chatham Hosue rules, but you will have read previously in Retail Week about Bond’s commitment to building a transparent business where there are no secrets hidden from customers, doing stuff like putting webcams in factories, and he built on that theme.

What came across to me most is that while Bond frequently says “I’m just a humble shopkeeper” when asked a question about the wider world which he doesn’t want to answer, he has a very healthy level of self-assurance, and is certainly not one to kow-tow to his single shareholder in Bentonville. That’s no bad thing - on his watch Asda has established itself as a leading light of the Walmart empire - but he knows he’s good and although his denials about being interested in the M&S job have been vociferous, I have a hunch that story might have a bit further to run.

Lunch today with Harold Tillman, whose impeccable as-ever appearance was in stark contrast to me, looking like Colombo. To my shame I’ve never got to know Harold too well so it was good to make up for lost time, and we bonded after discovering we come from places very near each other - him Brixton, me Dulwich. We ate at the Running Horse in Davies Street, Mayfair, which Tillman’s son has just bought, and very good it was too.

We talked about his work with the British Fashion Council and his recent takeover of Aquascutum, which looks very clever. It’s a great British brand but been hugely unexploited, but I’m sure it’s going to make a comeback and there are some significant cost savings to be had from merging the back office with Jaeger, which Tillman already owns.

I do most of my food shopping in M&S and never once have I been bothered that I’ve not been able to buy a branded product in there - the very high quality of its own brand is a huge selling point and to me it seems foolish to dilute it. I also don’t rate its new food advertsing campaign - M&S seems to be spending a lot of money telling people its prices are the same as Waitrose, hardly a knockout selling point.

Last night our news editor Jen and I were lucky enough to be invited by Morrisons to the world premiere of Disney’s new version of A Christmas Carol, which the supermarket was sponsoring. I must admit I had to do a double take when I saw the invite but it shows how much Morrisons has changed, and the company is going to get a lot of publicity out of it as its logo is on all the ads for the film.

We had a drink with Marc Bolland before the film and he was on good form, keen to talk about how well the smaller (10,000 sq ft-ish) stores Morrisons has been opening are doing, and also about Leeds United - he is very knowledgable on football and has adopted the Elland Road team. There’s no way Sir Ken Morrison would ever have sponsored a film premiere, let alone one in London, but Marc is nothing if not aware to Morrisons heritage so a simultaneous screening was held in Bradford too.

As for the premiere itself, Disney did a great job of turning Leicester Square into a winter wonderland with carol singers and fake snow, and there were loads of minor celebs there - by way of example Peter Andre was sitting right behind us, and we walked in right behind the very tall Fiona Bruce. For some reason there were hundreds of people up against the railings trying to get autographs of them. The film is going to be a must for kids this Christmas, although some of the effects are actually quite scary. Definitely one to get you in the Christmas mood though.

I was in the West End for lunch with Guy Hipwell, Liberty’s very likeable head of supply chain and e-commerce, who is a good friend of RW and also I’m pleased to say a regular reader of this blog. Liberty was looking stunning as always, with a really interesting collaboration with Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood - who’s discovered his arty side - catching the eye on the ground floor and a great Christmas shop on the fourth. The windows good too, especially one which reverses the traditional boxing day hunt by having the foxes eating Christmas dinner, and I went away feeling thorougly festive.

While in the area I also went to see Anthropologie, which I’d been meaning to do for the past week. It’s stunning, a brilliant addition to Regent Street. John Ryan wrote a feature on it last week which is well worth a look, but I would definitely flag up the living wall, which really is an extraordinary feature to put into such an old building, and the amazing standards of design and VM across the piece.

Only thing I struggle with is putting my finger on who exactly who the target customer is - womenswear is the bulk of the offer but there’s a big home element too. It feels like an Urban Outfitters for grown ups, not surprising given that they’re part of the same empire. The pricing is high and there may be some work to do to get the uninitiated London shopper into the brand, but it’s a wonderful store and I hope it succeeds here.

The only bad thing about my trip was the Oxford Circus diagonal crossing, which caused all manner of excitement in the press yesterday. I crossed it four times in the pouring rain to test it for Retail Week’s readers and I’m sorry to say I spotted a flaw. The problem is that even when it’s not busy, which it wasn’t at 12 o clock today, when people from the four corners meet in the middle they all get in each other’s way.

It may work in Japan, where people tend to go about things in an orderly fashion, but at Oxford Circus everyone seemed to be walking into each other, which when they all have umbrellas up, is a recipe for chaos. Hopefully we’ll all get used to it.

And while I’m conscious that most people come to this blog to read about retail, not about Retail Week, I thought it was probably worth explaining a bit more about what’s happening.

What we’re doing is saying that, with a handful of exceptions - most notably our daily news based on company announcements, and this blog - our content will be behind a wall and restricted exclusively for Retail Week subscribers.

Retail Week’s parent company Emap is introducing this policy across all our weekly titles - including Drapers - and Retail Week is the first to introduce it. It’s not just us who are moving behind a subscription barrier - some of the greatest minds in the media, most notably Rupert Murdoch, are working on similar plans as, in the same way as retailers have had to, we in the media adapt to the digital age.

We think it’s the right thing to do. We’ve got very exciting plans for our online offering, including a whole raft of new services which we’re going to be offering free to our subscribers, but we think its right that if we do that it’s our subscribers who benefit.

There’s going to be a lot of communication through the magazine, emails and letters with our subscribers over the next week or so to explain how to ensure you continue to receive free and uninterrupted online access.

You only need to log in once and your details will be remembered, so it should be very straightforward to use, but we will have plenty of customer support on the end of a phone and on email to help with any initial teething problems.

If you’re not a subscriber, we’re offering a hugely discounted £150 subscription to hopefully tempt you to join our subscriber base of the sector’s great and good. And if you like what you’re reading on this site, and of course this blog, I can promise you’ll find the magazine invaluable too. We do work very hard to ensure we are covering the issues which concern retailers and to help you understand the very rapid pace of change in the industry.

Happy to answer any questions, feel free to post a comment here, email me or give me a ring on 0207 728 3589.

The whole thing seems very odd - Tesco generally does its lobbying below the radar, and Blair and Sir Terry Leahy seem pretty unlikely bedfellows - but the story has been followed up extensively today so there must be something in it. There seems to be quite a lot of indignation about it in the political world but the bit I’m interested in is the news that Tesco is thinking of opening shops in the Middle East in the first place.

The UK’s number one retailer has been very successful in becoming an international brand, and some of its overseas markets, such as Korea, have been very successful. But now it’s finding the going a lot harder, with Fresh & Easy in the US leaking money, and other countries like Ireland and some of its Central European markets suffering really badly as a result of the global recession.

Some experts suspect that the way Tesco allocates cost means the performance of the international business is actually weaker that its results suggest and that it is supported by the UK more than it lets on. Whatever, it certainly has enough on its plate right now, both internationally and at home, where as it appears to have lost a little market share. It’s not as though the Middle East is a bed of roses retail-wise at the moment anyway.