News is just breaking that 373 stores are to close at off licence group First Quench, with the loss of 1,738 jobs

Administrators KPMG have announced that the closures will include all six of the First Quench brands – Threshers, Wine Rack, The Local, Haddows, Bottoms Up and Victoria Wine.

Just over 900 stores will remain open with almost 5,000 staff employees remaining in their jobs, and KPMG hope to sell the remainder of the business as a going concern.

A run-down old pub, yesteryear.

Okay, we’ll start this one with an opening line you’d expect to hear on the ITV Evening News or The One Show…

More and more landlords are shouting ‘last orders’ for the final time as the number of pub closures in Britain increases by the week.

There. That felt good. Apart from the stuff about all the pubs closing. But if they’re shit ones, who really cares?

New stats show that pubs were closing at a rate of 52 a week in the first half of this year, with smaller communities like Emmerdale affected by the closures. However, continental café-type bars are opening at a rate of two a week, and pubs that serve food are more likely to survive in the current climate.

Factors blamed for the pub slump include increased alcohol taxes, the smoking ban, that thing about sitting around at home in your pants and drinking alone becoming cool, the recession (obviously) and there being loads of shit-hot stuff on Bitterwallet to read all the time instead of going out.

So then, the pubs and that. Do you frequent them as much as you used to? If not why not? And how? And when? Mmm? Eh?

Just like The One Show wasn’t it? Textbook.

As many as 35,000 UK shops could close this year as the recession bites hard into the British economy. That’s a prediction included in a report by Experian and featured on The Money Programme tonight on BBC2, presented by retail ghoul Mary Portas (right).

Stats assembled by the British Retail Consortium suggest that sales fell 0.6 per cent in May, following brisk figures for March and April. Additionally, Job Centre statistics reveal that 165,000 shop workers claimed benefits last month – 49 per cent up on the year before.

With predictions that unemployment might reach three million before long, the shops could be hit harder still as money dries up and people resort to buying only necessities. Gateshead, Tyne And Wear has been named as the country’s biggest retail ghost town, with 60% of shop units standing empty.

What does the retail landscape look like where you live? Are you finding that local shops for local people are closing down and driving you more and more into the welcoming clutches of your nearest supermarket. Would you like to openly mourn a favourite retail establishment that has recently gone spectacularly tits up? Tell us now, because we might never meet again.