Many years ago, when I started visiting a local snooker club with a friend, we noticed that many of the shops in the little parade inhabited by the club had transformed into betting shops. This was around the time that people were becoming scandalised by the sheer number of closures of 'local bank branches'. There had been a bank in that parade when I was a nipper - possibly even two - but it had long since closed. One or two of the restaurants were still there, but the big shop - a carpet or flooring shop, I believe... maybe furniture - was not just deserted but desolate.
It struck me then that the appearance of betting shops in this local retail wasteland was 'a sign of the times'.
When I woke up this morning, I noticed one of the shopfronts over the road was being worked on. The property had been cleared out and the windows replaced months ago, and the outside had been given a lick of paint quite recently, but now there were two men fumbling about with the signage.
And, wouldn't you know it, it'll be the second new betting shop to open up in my particular stretch of road in the last 12 months. The funniest thing is that the space it will occupy was once a bank.
Is this the finest irony at work, or have we merely reached the point where people put more faith (and money) into gambling for themselves than they're willing to put into a bank?
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