I got to have my little shuftle around Maplins yesterday, it was interesting but not enthralling. Not a huge shop so may be others carry more stock or it's just there online presence that seems to have a huge number of product lines. It doesn't seem to be the 'go to source' for any particular category of gear, a little computer gear, a little home electronics and remote control stuff and a lot of odds and sods. The computer stuff was disappointing, just a couple of flat panel monitors out, both looked over priced, a bunch of own brand HDDs, again looking over priced, call me a snob but at their prices I'll stick to brand names. They did some external HDDs, brand names, at what I thought were reasonable prices. One thing I didn't was a reasonable price, but it's a long time since I bought one, was an air duster at £13??

I did come away with a cheap weather monitor, temperature and humidity inside and out, max and min temperature and barometric pressure history for preceding 24 hours, not much better than sticking your head out the door, but a little. Whenever I have time I will have a browse there but I can't foresee any circumstance when I come up short of some tool or thing whilst in the middle of doing something and I suddenly think, 'I know, I'll pop into Cambridge and get it from Maplins'.