For many of us, the absence of live televised sport during the lockdown has left a hole that The Times crossword and a 1,000 piece jungle jigsaw puzzle just can't fill. The Weekly suspects that only a small minority (if any!) of its readers are genuine darts fans. Yet, the arrival of the Professional Darts Corporation's thirty-two consecutive night "Home Tour" on Friday night at least provided the opportunity to tune into some live sporting action and perhaps (temporarily) adopt a new sporting hero. With the likes of Ben Stokes, Harry Kane and Katarina Johnson-Thompson unlikely to feature on our screens any time soon, is it time for the likes of World Darts Champion, Peter "Snakebite" Wright, and World No.3 Gerwyn "The Iceman" Price to capture the nation's hearts? The Snakebite might not look like your average athlete, but in Friday night's losing match, he did boast a multi-coloured mohican with an NHS logo on his head in his own unique show of appreciation for the nation's health-workers. Despite the fact that some of the top performers have had to be ruled out of the tournament due to "poor wifi connections" (probably a sporting first!) and watching a man playing darts in his bedroom does somewhat dampen the atmosphere, The Weekly salutes the PDC for getting some form of sport back on our screens. And, when it comes to saluting sporting heroes, we don't have to look any further this week than ninety-nine year old former army captain, Tom Moore, who captured the nation's hearts by walking one hundred laps of his garden, raising a staggering £25m (and rising) in the process. Hats off to you, sir.

On Tuesday, The Weekly listened into CBRE's busier-than-usual Monthly Valuation Index results call. The Index is made up of approximately 1,300 assets held in twenty-nine monthly valued funds with an aggregate value of over £20bn. The results, therefore, provided the first indicative data on the impact of Covid-19 on commercial real estate values. At the All Property level, capital values were down by -3.0% over the month, driving total returns to -2.6%. Offices and industrials, however, showed some relative resilience, with both sectors posting marginal rental growth (+0.1%) over the month. As you'd expect with non-essential retailers and leisure operators shut for business, the most immediate impact has been felt in the retail sector which saw a -5.1% fall in capital values. The retail sector has not seen such a sharp decline since the 2008 Global Financial Crisis or the immediate aftermath of the 2016 Brexit Referendum vote. Yet, even with these rather sobering statistics, the figures do not tell the full story. As CBRE's Senior Valuation Director, David Tudor, pointed out, the timing of the lockdown and subsequent Government interventions to support business gave valuers just five working days to assess the far-reaching impacts of the pandemic and set the tone for many £ billions of valuations. A daunting task (!) and one that has inevitably resulted in the inclusion of a "material uncertainty" clause against reported values. With transactions parked, or suspended, and concerning data on quarterly rent collection statistics still emerging, valuers have had to use their best judgement without the benefit of evidence or hindsight. In David's words, the material uncertainty clause is "not an invalidation", but it most definitely signals caution. We fully expect next month's valuation figures to reveal more bad news.

Over the last few weeks, many of you will have logged onto the Ocado or Sainsbury's websites just after midnight in a bid to secure a much-coveted supermarket delivery slot! It will come as no surprise then that business for e-commerce giant Amazon is also booming. With much of the world subject to stay-at-home lockdown conditions, Amazon, with its vast infrastructure already in place to deliver products direct to the consumer, has been one of the crisis’s few beneficiaries. According to figures from The Guardian, we are spending a staggering £8,820 every second (roughly £762m per day) on the company's website. Indeed, with his position already cemented as the world's richest man, founder Jeff Bezos has seen his personal fortune increase by £19bn since the outbreak began. Yet, even as business is thriving, Amazon is facing its own public relations challenges amid concerns about the health and safety of its employees. This culminated, on Tuesday, with the company suspending its six French distribution centres after a French court ruled it was not doing enough to protect workers and must halt selling "all non-essential goods" for a month in order to improve safety measures. That's all well and good, but the question many French families may well be asking themselves is whether a 753-piece Harry Potter lego castle, designed to keep their eight year old occupied at home for at least forty-five minutes, should rightly now be deemed an "essential item". For despairing mums and dads, the answer surely would be a resounding "yes", alongside such other lockdown essentials as a Roger Black folding exercise bike, a Morphy Richards breadmaker, a Wondercore yoga mat and a Manhattan cocktail set (note: substitute brands may apply). We would have added loo roll to the list, but after some furious stockpiling in March, we've all run out of cupboard space!