Welcome back to Paris, Marks and Spencer

It has been a decade since British retailer Marks and Spencer (M&S) quit France, shutting all of its 18 stores and firing 1,700 people.

In fact in 2001 M&S, under the then-chairmanship of Luc Van de Velde, closed all 38 of its European stores with the loss of 3,350 jobs across the continent.

Marks and Spencer reopening in Paris (screenshot from France 24 report)

Since last Friday though, they're back - in France at least - with the opening of a flagship store in the capital Paris at an address that has not gone unnoticed in the press; 100 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, "la plus belle avenue du monde" (the most beautiful avenue in the world" as the celebrated street is often called.

It opened its doors on November 24 choosing the location because it "wanted to find a prestigious address and return with a new image," as Michelle Lamberti, the company's marketing director is quoted as saying in the monthly women's magazine Marie Claire.

Although all those expat Brits - no matter how misty their memories or tenuous their ties with Blighty might have become - may have had high hopes of being able to get their hands on traditional British fare (yes there really is such a thing) they'll likely be disappointed by the reopening.

Because as the British daily The Guardian reports, the emphasis of the flagship store (there are another three scheduled to be opened in the Paris region) is most definitely not on food.

The grub is there but it's apparently squeezed into just 100 square metres of the store's 1,400 square metres of retail space.

The emphasis will be on clothing, a decision chief executive Marc Bolland defended as being a practical one.

"Let's be honest, nobody comes to the Champs Elysées to do their weekly shop," he told The Guardian.

Can't argue with that.

The company has also launched a French language website for anyone not able to make it to Paris.

Time to stock up on warm underwear and pullovers as France prepares for winter and a chance for a spot of stay-at-home Christmas shopping perhaps.

In any case, rebonjour Marks and Spencer.

Britain's "Super Granny" to the rescue as an elderly lady foils a robbery WITH UPDATE

It was real handbags-at-dawn-type stuff in the East Midlands town of Northampton on Monday morning as an elderly woman attacked a gang of men attempting to rob a jeweller's store.

Screenshot from YouTube video

There were, according to the BBC, six of them armed with sledgehammers.

There was just one of her, armed with...what else, but a handbag.

Video footage of what happened was broadcast on ITV's Anglia Tonight show and, in the way these things are, soon went viral on the Net.

Take a look at the video and you can see exactly what happened; one old lady, dressed in red, rushing across the street and laying into the men without any apparent concern for her own safety.



It was a case of, as the Guardian puts it, once the cavalry arrived "the thugs - twice her size - didn't stand a chance."

Passers-by eventually lost their British reserve and helped hold down one of the men as he fell from the getaway scooter.

Police later arrested three others and were searching for the other two who managed to get away.

Nobody - least of all Super Granny - was hurt, although she wishes to remain anonymous.

"Clearly we will recognise her for her bravery," Peter Chisholm, a local police inspector told the Guardian.

"We won't be releasing her name though," Inspector Peter Chisholm is quoted as saying.

"There might be more members of the gang out there and we wouldn't want to put her in any danger," he added.

UPDATE

The woman has now been named as Ann Timson, who is quoted in the Daily Mail as saying, "My mother’s instinct kicked in and I ran across the road shouting at the lads to stop it. Only then did I realise that they were smashing glass and that it was a raid."

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