Pub bitch: Plastered rats and party time at the pubcos
TV pubs blamed for police woes
As if pubs don't have a hard enough time of things in the real world it seems even when they appear in soap operas they get a kicking. The latest salvo against the Great British Boozer comes from a leading Scottish copper. Pat Shearer, president of the Association of Chief Police (Polis?) Officers in Scotland, said recently it was no wonder the country was in the state it's in: "It's little wonder we are the way we are. You sit down in front of the television and every evening you're effectively in a pub." Producers of TV soaps such as Eastenders, Emmerdale and Corrie had to recognise that the storylines in their programmes had an effect on viewers, Shearer opined. True, some people have problems with alcohol, but the portrayal of pubs in soaps is hardly damaging society, much as films about vampires don't have us walking around with garlic draped round our necks all the bleedin' time…
No s*** Sherlock I
It's amazing what people will study in the name of science. American scientists have discovered what most of us worked out on our own, namely that if you suffer from migraines there is the likelihood that you are more susceptible to hangovers after a night on the sauce. How did they find out this nugget of the human condition? I'll tell you how. They induced migraines in some rats and then got them drunk. Yep, a bunch of white-coated boffinsTM gave a bunch of rats major headaches and then took the wee beasties out on the lash. The rats with migraines suffered more from exposure to light and pain after a boozy session than the non-migrained animals. I'd have thought common sense could have told them this, but you can never tell with scientists…
That's iNTERTAINment
John Leslie, erstwhile boss of Regent Inns and now head honcho of the sub-editor's nightmarely-named iNTERTAIN, had a bit of an epiphany recently, thanks to his 17-year-old daughter. "Looking at how she enjoys herself turned a bit of a light on," he said. "When I was in my late teens we'd be happy enough sitting in a pub and supping a few pints. This generation isn't satisfied with that. They spend hours a day on social networking sites and then when they do go out they go out for a biggie. They want the best DJs, the best live bands and the best environment they can find." That, Leslie said, is what his new operation will aim to provide for its customers. We assumed that's what Regent Inns had been trying to do all along, but maybe we missed summat…
No s*** Sherlock II
In what at first glance at least appears to be another case of stating the bleedin' obvious, a report has been published that poses the question 'Does Beer Consumption Rise In A World Cup Year?' The document assesses beer sales going back to 1966 and "although the annual market growth figures may have been variable, there was nevertheless evidence of short-term peaks that could require careful planning across the whole supply chain, especially at a local level," says Ian Pressnell, director of Plato Logic, which publishes the report in question. I'm sure it's packed with all sorts of useful facts and figures but at £250 a pop it brings to mind - as things like this tend to - a phrase containing the words 'money', 'for', 'old' and 'rope'…
Party time at the pubcos
Bosses of the UK's leading pub operators were probably dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils or its on-trade equivalent following the Office of Fair Trading's (OFT) decision to put the industry on a shelf at the back of the stationery cupboard and forget about it. Constantly referring to the fact it had been charged with examining competition issues as they related to the consumer, OFT senior director Simon Williams took on the chin a suggestion that the whole inquiry thing had been a waste of time and money. "That depends on your point of view," said Williams, stoically.
As far as Williams was concerned the OFT had given a clear answer to those questioning the industry's competitive environment so we could all go home now. I suspect the celebrations in a couple of pubco HQs went on until the wee small hours of the morning…
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