How to save our high streets? The answer is in the church | Simon Jenkins

Abandoned churches are slowly being reinvented as secular meeting places as the experience economy continues to grow

I have just had my first Alexa experience. It was in Los Angeles and it was eerie and rather charming. There is no doubt “she” vastly simplifies a range of trivial tasks. To the lonely, she is apparently comforting, like a pet, and with “empathy” increasingly built in, is growing ever more so. But she is clearly driving a nail ever further into the coffin of the classic concept...