Gennaro Castaldo Watch: Ealing broadside

Wearing his black cap and a mournful expression, Gennaro Castaldo announces Ealing's HMV is closing. Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow:

Today, spokesman Gennaro Castaldo told Ealing Today.co.uk that the Broadway branch was no longer viable and it would shut on Sunday. He said:

"I can confirm that our store on the Broadway will close at the end of this week. Obviously we're very sad to see it go, and whilst the majority of our stores around the country will be unaffected, we're having to look at a few locations that are perhaps not as viable for us to keep open as they once used to be.

"Most of these will be down to the fact there is more than one HMV store in the area serving the same public, but there will also be some instances where we may need to take other factors into account, such as rent levels that are particularly high or where people's local shopping habits have changed in recent years."

It's really nice that Gennaro took the time to actually tailor a response that was specific to the closing Ealing store, rather than just churn out a press release that has less to do with the loss of a local store and more to do with trying to pretend that the chain as a whole is still staying afloat.

Seriously, if there's so few stores closing as you're trying to make out, wouldn't you have the time to find something a bit warmer and personal to say about the shop you're shuttering?

Mr Castaldo said all staff had been informed and HMV are hoping to redeploy as many as possibled to other HMV stores.

Oh, how generous of them to tell the staff a few days beforehand, rather than simply waiting for them to turn up on Monday morning to discover the two CDs racks had been moved out and someone was doing a golf sale in the games area.

He added:

"We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our regular customers who have shopped at this store, who we very much look forward to seeing at other HMVs in the area."

Yeah, good luck with that, Gennaro - people who won't pop down to a shop half a mile away aren't going to start hauling five miles to the next one, are they?