Is Bradford's Broadway scheme ever going to get off the ground? Like just about everyone in this city, I very much hope it does but fear that it might not - at least, not on the scale we've been led to expect. There's a new phenomenon which could undermine its prospects: the rise of on-line shopping.

This past couple of weeks various retailers have come up with their national post-Christmas trading results and a trend has started to emerge. What appears now to be known as "bricks and mortar" retailing - ie shops and stores that people actually go into to buy things - is having to compete with purchasing on the internet.

It's a trend which seems to be accelerating, understandably so as more and more people acquire computers and get into the habit of sitting in front of them for hours every day, clicking from one website to another in search of on-line bargains. And there are plenty to be had, at prices often considerably below what you would pay in the shops.

High-street record retailers are looking over their shoulders as music fans buy via Amazon or download their favourites rather than hand money over the counter for a CD.

Greetings card manufacturers and retailers are biting their nails as more people send their messages on-line rather than buying cards, writing them, stamping them and entrusting them to the Royal Mail. Travel agencies find their businesses having to compete with on-line booking.

There's a revolution taking place in the consumer world, and it's not entirely a good thing. People are becoming ever more isolated from each other. Many spend their working days staring at computers and only communicating with their colleagues when necessary. Away from work, they've been priced out of the pub and prefer now to drink at home in front of the telly or, goaded by the health lobby, not to drink at all.

Going shopping is one of the few remaining ways of interacting with other people. If that's to fade away too, what a solitary lot we're going to be.

And what a sorry state our town and city centres will be in if the number of shoppers dwindles in direct proportion to the rise in the number of mouse-clickers. Even the big shopping malls, which have been blamed for the decline of the high street, will be threatened in their turn.

So you see why I'm concerned about Broadway. This doesn't seem to be a good climate in which to attract retailers to a city centre which, because a big chunk of it was prematurely flattened, has already lost many of its shoppers to other towns and cities in the area and is steadily losing others to the internet.

And if the shops don't come, who will make up the council tax income that should come with them? Come to think of it, who's making it up now? The loss of those city-centre buildings, some at least of which were still occupied, must already have cost Bradford many hundreds of thousands of pounds in lost council tax.

It seemed a time for rejoicing when those shabby 1960s buildings came down. There'll be nothing to cheer about, though, if others don't go up to replace them and we have to meet an ongoing council-tax shortfall by paying still more ourselves and/or seeing council services be cut further.

Just leave us all part of the union

Gordon Brown is right to warn against ending the 300-year-old union between England and Scotland, even though there might be a fair degree of self-interest in his motive for doing so (if Scotland pulled out of the United Kingdom to go it alone, how popular would a Scottish prime minister of England be?).

The United Kingdom should remain united. Nations which divide themselves up into separate units too often end up at war with each other. Haven't we seen enough evidence of that in Eastern Europe, particularly in the former Yugoslavia and what used to be the Soviet Union?

If Scotland, Wales, England and Northern Ireland all become autonomous they will become rivals, and before long all too probably aggressive rivals. If you doubt that, take a lesson from that dire quiz programme Your Country Needs You, hosted by the smug, charmless Patrick Kielty, on which the BBC wasted licence-payers' money last Saturday night.

Teams from the four components of the United Kingdom were asked to answer questions largely about TV programmes, pop music or the doings of celebrities - which is apparently what "general knowledge" consists of in these dumbed-down days.

Their rivalry couldn't be described as friendly. This was a real needle contest, encouraged by Kielty, which turned into a disturbing display of nationalism. In its banal way it served as a warning of what lies in wait if we ever become a nation divided.

I love Scotland and Wales (I've never visited Northern Ireland) and I don't want to go there as a stranger or have to show my passport at the border. They're still parts of my homeland, and I'd like to keep them that way thank you very much.

Spot the difference

The pressure is on to get us to switch to DAB radios, which remain rather more expensive than the "ordinary" radios most of us have around the house and in our cars. A big selling point is said to be the superb sound quality. So I was tempted to invest £50 in one.

However, before I did I listened to digital radio on my television via a Freeview box. And then I switched off and continued to listen to the same programme on FM on a good-quality "ordinary" transistor radio that cost a third that amount.

Maybe my ear is unsophisticated, but I could detect no difference in sound quality. Are we being had? Is this a case of the Emperor's new clothes? Maybe.

Whatever, I've decided to hang on to my fifty quid and stick with FM until it's finally phased out, along with analogue television, and we're forced to adopt digital if we want to keep listening.