City diary

JDW's cut-price law work

JD Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin's unique mixture of determination and frugality has struck again. You'll remember he's pursuing his former property finder Van De Berg through the courts for alleged fraud. Rather than notch up hideous legal costs, Martin hired a dozen paralegals on shortish contracts to do the legal grunt work - five of them newly-qualified briefs from Down Under. "I wasn't smuggling in immigrants," he assures me. He also dismisses rumours that he had most of them living above one of his pubs in Watford.

Profit and pain in Opus's accounts

Anyone who studies the accounts of Opus Energy, which has 5,000 pub customers, will notice an interesting correlation. As the number of customers increased in the financial year to April 2006, the number of complaints rose more or less in tandem. An Energywatch graph shows complaints per month peaked in October 2006 and has tailed off dramatically since. But as complaints were rising in the 2005-2006 financial year, turnover shot up from £44.8m the year before to £70.5m. Pre-tax profit rose dramatically from £414,000 in 2005 to £3.1m in 2006. It will be interesting to see what's happened to turnover and profits at Opus in the year complaints began to fall away. The answer should be arriving at Companies House quite soon.

Forget gastro and just do good food, reckons Roux

Top chef Albert Roux enters the gastropub debate in the latest edition of Fleurets magazine Be Inspired. "I can't see a great future for gastro," he says, "but I can see a huge future in good food pubs. I believe there to be a huge market for good pub/bar food that delivers distinct unparalleled value. Truly great, affordable food is both the challenge and opportunity of the future - that's how it should be." No indication, unfortunately, as to whether Monsieur Roux has been to Mitchells & Butlers Pub & Carvery in Peacehaven, East Sussex. But I think it's precisely the sort of place he must mean - four of us ate there the other Sunday for £25.

Carlsberg chief tells it like it is

Newish Carlsberg chief executive Jorgen Buhl Rasmussen, right, provides an interesting insight into his management style in the current edition of Brewers' Guardian. "I put a lot of emphasis on honesty, transparency, saying what you think," he says. "I will do this, and when I don't get the same back, I get disappointed. If people don't tell the truth and I learn later on they really know more than they told me that can really piss me off and get me extremely upset." Everybody is duly warned - we wouldn't like him when he's angry. Probably.

Admiral employs cellar Bobbies

Checking cellars is bound to be a source of friction between business development managers (BDMs) and licensees. How can you build a trusting business partnership as a BDM when you're having to nose around the cellar like Plod of the Yard the next? Admiral Taverns may have found the solution - employing Plod of the Yard to do the job. The company now has eight former policemen on its payroll, doing the cellar inspections while BDMs focus on, er, managing the development of business. "We don't want confrontation and former policemen offer a bit of gravitas and understand data," managing director Lynn Darcy tells me.

Shepherd Neame scoops dodgy English award

This week, City Diary launches a new, occasional award for Unplain English as a counterpoint to the well-known Plain English award. The first winner is Shepherd Neame with the following example, on the subject of its Business Process Review, from its results announcement: "We have been reviewing our options for change since 2003 and at the year end our total investment since the start of the project was £3.4m, including exceptional charges of £1.8m. As part of the exceptional charge, we have prudently written off £600,000 costs associated with this initial review and mapping our current processes. We have defined new processes and extended the original remit so that there will now be no need for a phase two. This has extended the timescale but will lead to greater efficiency from the outset." No wonder the review's taken four years! All contributions gratefully received on this modern scourge.

Costly keg deal for Coors

You'll remember that Coors sold its keg population to Trenstar for £30m in 2004. The deal would serve to "boost cashflow and improve efficiencies," said chief executive Peter Kendall, right, at the time. Well, in February this year Lloyds TSB put Brewers Logistics Management, part of Trenstar, into administration. Shortly afterwards, the bank served a put notice on Coors, requesting that the brewer purchase the kegs used in its business. Any kind of discount on the original sale price? No chance. Coors forked out £45.9m for the kegs it had sold off less than three years earlier, according to documents lodged at Companies House.

Globe gets ready to step up disposal of gold bricks

Globe Pub Company, the tenanted company owned by Robert Tchenguiz that experienced a poor summer, is due to step up its disposal of gold bricks in the coming months. It sold two pubs earlier this year for £3.7m, pocketing a tidy £2.6m surplus to the debt allocated to it as part of last year's securitisation. "We have identified a number of properties for disposal in the next three to six months," a report to investors states.

Brighton councillor in murder mystery

Top Brighton and national councillor Geoffrey Theobald has a new item on his hit-list. He told the recent Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers at its recent away-day that he wanted to crackdown on "murder music" playing in pubs. Not an expression many delegates had encountered before. Pressed for a definition, Coun Theobald added mysteriously: "It's one that has caused a lot of problems down here - the (expression) is accurate." He mumbled further about "Caribbean" music being played at a pub in the town. Anyone able to shed light on this one?

Marston's winning bar is blessed

Congratulations to Marston's, whose Pitcher & Piano in Nottingham's Lace Market, a converted church, beat all-comers to scoop the prestigious Loaded awarded for Best Chain Bar. "Yes - you can get royally trousered with the comforting knowledge that Jesus would approve of the venue," stated Loaded.

Boom year for gastromaster Belben

What a year for gastropub pioneer Michael Belben. In January he picked up the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Morning Advertiser's food magazine PubChef. He's opened a new eatery in London's Great Queen Street that's had the food critic Fay Maschler wet around the chops ever since. And now he has been named by the city's Evening Standard as one of the 1,000 most influential people in London. "Resorting to an old Farringdon Road boozer as the only affordable premises, Mike Belben (and former partner David Eyre) unleashed a monster in 1991 with the opening of what became known as the first gastropub," states the newspaper. Eagle-eyed observers might have even spotted Belben hob-nobbing in the background at a barbecue held at Jamie Oliver's Essex mansion, filmed for the Jamie's Chef series at the start of the year.

Landlord Murray's common sense recycling plan

Pub landlord Al Murray has noticed new awareness of green issues spreading through the industry. He's come up with a perfectly green argument for shunning the off-trade. "We can all do our bit to help with global warming - and the most important is in the area of recycling: plain and simple, buy the beer you want to drink in the pub and drink it in the pub," he writes in his new book, Common Sense. "Going to the offy to get cans isn't just bad