WHAT'S the first thing you do when you've finished a marathon shop? Stagger through your front door, groaning under the weight of a load of bags and gasping for a cup of tea probably.
At least, that's the way it used to be.
But why groan and gasp in the 21st century High Street?
No one groans when they're shopping these days (ok, just all blokes) because the heavy stuff has probably been delivered to your doorstep after you carried out the physically onerous task of pressing some keys on a laptop.
And no one gasps anymore because shops sit cheek-by-jowl with coffee shops, cafes, restaurants, delicatessens, smoothie bars, cookie kiosks and other purveyors of low-fat lard. You can't move for opportunities to top up your cholesterol.
Shopping, you see, is not a chore anymore. It is an experience.
It has to be an experience because there is a breed of people out there for whom handing over good money for the pleasure of battling with the hordes is right up there with medieval torture.
Then there's the small matter of that armchair alternative: you can either drive to Murderhall or click on a website, so what's it going to be (not the M1, thanks very much).
So, if shopping destinations are to compete with the wide variety of competitors for people's time (sport, cinema, tourist attractions, gyms and other leisure pursuits), they've got to do not one but two things: offer facilities which give people a reason to hang around, and be open at times when busy people are not so busy.
We now know that this is what the long-term plans to extend the Victoria Centre boil down to. Not the £35m that Intu wants to spend covering up that awful concrete, but the money it wants to throw at a whopping great extension at the northern end of the centre on Mansfield Road.
As and when that happens (or even if – Intu and the city council are at loggerheads over these plans) the Victoria Centre will no longer be just a day time shopping mall.
It will stay open during the evening and you'll be able to eat there and entertain yourself.
We don't know exactly what form this experience will take, but Intu issued a stock market statement a few days ago which said that it believed that "for a shopping centre to thrive it needs to trade into the evening, providing the extended shopping hours which our customers want and a wider range of catering and entertainment options."
So now you know – forget the midweek match, you could be enjoying a Wednesday night choosing curtains at John Lewis instead.
Now, those of a certain age might well be sitting in their armchairs and snorting that history is merely repeating itself here. After all, didn't the Victoria Centre once have a food court?
As our old black-and-white image shows, it did indeed, complete with a fountain, verdant foliage (ok, a tree) and even umbrellas to protect you from the intense heat which used to beat down upon us in those far-off days of 1985.
With the very greatest of respect to those who look back fondly on the days when the Victoria Centre was still regarded as an icon of retail excellence, the fodder doled out at the food court would probably have been flash-fried by restaurant critics.
Consumers these days expect not baked potatoes with dayglo 'cheese' washed down by gullet-melting styrofoam tea, but an exotic choice of food from a range of branded restaurants or cafes. In other words, places where you can enjoy a meal rather than tolerate murder on a paper plate.
Right now, the Victoria Centre can't deliver that. Even with that £35m refurb, it will still be behind the times for what's meant to be a flagship city shopping destination.
Most days, the centre shuts at 6pm, though you've got until 7.30pm to race round on Wednesdays.
Contrast that with Cribbs Causeway in Bristol (a similar size city to Nottingham), where a 9pm finish is routine. Closer to home, Leicester's Highcross stays open until 8pm on weekdays. Even Westfield Derby stays open until 8pm on Thursday and Fridays, while its restaurants (TGI Friday's Pizza Express and Nando's) are open to 9.30pm or 10pm. At Meadowhall, the mall stays open until 9pm, the Oasis dining area an hour later.
There are plenty of places you can go to eat in Nottingham (and the Cornerhouse is only a stone's throw from the Victoria Centre). But even on shopping hours the Victoria Centre seems stuck in another era.
The City Council wants Broadmarsh, which Intu also owns, redeveloped before the Victoria Centre is extended, Intu wants planning permission for the Victoria Centre extension before it does anything with Broadmarsh. In other words, we're in a right pickle.
