HMV limps on

You don't want to look, but you can't look away: HMV is continuing to limp on, with Deloitte apparently planning to find a buyer for the business.

It'd be a miracle if Deloitte could even find a business there, much less something to sell.

You'd have to wish the administrators luck - there are real people whose jobs hang in the balance now; people who aren't to blame for the decade of decline and hare-brained cinemas-and-youth-hangout schemes.

Equally, you'd struggle to see what administrators could do, starting from here. At least with Fopp, and MVC, there was always a chance that a rival chain might be interested in buying the rump. There's no rival chains any more.

There's a brand - if even dear old Zavvi lives on as a URL, that suggests there might be some room for HMV to hang about making a mockery of the chain's failure to develop a digital strategy. But there's few jobs in there, and - seriously - does anyone really go to Woolworths.co.uk or Littlewoods.co.uk and think it's the same business?

So: a little early for publishing the obituaries. But I doubt if anyone hasn't already started writing them.