Cardiac

North Street is responsible for a couple of dodgily named businesses. There’s a few runners in this reprehensible category for the hotly contested top slot, including Caffe Sazz and Lion Stores, the latter of which doesn’t supply all of the accessories that you will ever need for your pet lion, but does stock everything you’ll need for cleaning your toilet. But, without any shadow of a doubt, Cardiac wins this category hands down, and would probably fair pretty well in the national, nay European, stakes as well.
When I first saw this shop with its dated branding, I thought, wow! Another charity shop on North Street… but no! Cardiac doesn’t describe a fundraising outlet for people with heart trouble… instead, it’s a greetings card store that sells pretty naff gifts as well.
When the penny dropped I immediately thought, ‘what were they thinking?’ Then I moved onto, ‘what drugs were they taking?‘
Being a little more cynical, I then concluded that they must have applied the Anita Roddick approach to marketing… which is essentially to brand and launch your store with the desire to cause as much offense as possible. (The first ever Body Shop was directly next to an undertakers, and received comprehensive press coverage as a consequence, making the Body Shop an instant hit!)
At least Roddick was an innovator, applying new business models to her marketing campaigns and product ranges. For her ethos regarding animal cruelty alone she deserved to succeed. But why oh why is Cardiac still in business?

A rather tacky and over priced shop, selling greetings cards for all occasions in styles ranging from modern and comedic to traditional pictures of flowers or black and white photos of animals. The shop also sells some stationary items such as notebooks, and stocks mindless gift items like 1950’s inspired models and Plain Lazy merchandise (quite an apt name, in my view, since anyone actually buying someone a gift here is evidently just plain lazy). Cardiac sells a variety of different gift wraps, in sheets, for fairly high prices, so unless you see one you simply MUST have, you’d be better off getting a roll of the stuff somewhere else. It would almost certainly be cheaper. Since the recession put paid to Woolworths, it seems every shop with the space has started selling pick-​and-​mix. Cardiac is no exception, having gone for the «old fashioned sweets in jars» approach, with a pricetag to match.

Cute card shop which stocks unusual cards that I haven’t seen elsewhere. They also have a few small gifts and things — and best of all they have a mini sweet shop at the front. I love adding in retro sweets into a birthday card so that’s me sorted in one shop! Stock seems to be carefully chosen to be bright and sunny, with a tad of a retro feel.

Cards and gifts of the kitsch-​iest, brightest and cutest varieties. I love their retro red telephones (although they cost around £40, so I have yet to buy one). The wrapping paper is cool, and will make even the smallest of gift look snazzy!
I bought two colourful glass jars with wire handles, to burn tealights in the garden. At £7 each these were steeply priced, but who’s really going to bothered to make something so beautiful out of their jam jams? Probably just what the shop thinks every time they sell something! Anyway, it’s all a bit more unique than Clinton’s cards, so worth the trip for your special someone.