Mega-shed

Still, the amphitheater has virtues. Sight lines and acoustics are far better than you’ll find in larger facilities, the river view and Memphis skyline are unique and, nowadays, a 5,000-seat facility seems positively intimate compared with the modern mega-sheds.

First there were the friendly neighbourhood ironmongers. Then came the out-of- town superstore. Now, courtesy of Kingfisher, comes the next generation of DIY outlet, the mega-shed. Called Depot (and appropriately given the American pronunciation Dee Poe), at 70,000 sq ft these are twice the size of typical B&Q stores and stock double the number of lines.

With food governance becoming a cosmopolitan and (also) market-based affair, the role of citizen-consumers is no longer restricted to voting for the right party or demonstrating against mega-sheds for animal production.

Nowadays presses have become so large and so expensive that they are housed in their own mega-sheds, usually on an outlying industrial park that allows easy access for the lorries that bring in reels of paper and take out pallets of newspapers and magazines.