Hamish Champ: You're never too old to learn

As any parent knows education is an ongoing and vital part of a child's development, and it doesn't go amiss in the adult world either.

We're never too old to learn, despite the saying concerning knackered mutts and new tricks. As I creak towards my inevitable dotage I find I'm learning things that still have the capacity to surprise. If nothing else, there's my ability to master 'Halo Reach' on my son's XBox. Damn those covenant devils. I'm nearly a sergeant, you know. Etc.

Meanwhile, back in the professional world the best business types acknowledge there's always plenty more to take on board. Consequently many companies go out of their way to invest in the ongoing education of their staff, whether by on-the-job training, distance learning, or courses within a college environment.

Now it's not possible for everyone to up sticks from their place of work to go and spend a few months learning new tricks of the trade, but a period in the US doing just that seems to have eminently agreed with Simon Emeny, the new group managing director at London brewer and pub operator Fuller's.

Our Simes went on a sabbatical to Harvard, the posh business university in Massachusetts where companies around the world send their top executives to learn how to do things differently.

I don't mean how to add up using really big calculators or writing sentences with much longer words in them, although I'm sure these skills are on the curriculum somewhere. No, I mean how they can run their businesses in a different way.

Back from his time in the colonies and speaking at a press conference to discuss Fuller's' half year results last week Emeny said he'd learned a lot during his time rubbing shoulders with fellow students; business people hailing from more than 40 countries.

He added that he hoped to bring a fresh perspective to the business which, he noted with some amusement, had done extremely well in his absence.

Certainly his ability to drive skilfully round a question about where the group might buy more pubs appears to have been honed by his time in the colonies, bless him.

Now, I appreciate not all firms can afford either the time or financial resources to send an employee to such a renowned institution. And yes, the proof of Emeny's time at Harvard will be in what he brings to his business subsequently.

But learning additional skills in any new environment, be it a blue-blooded university in America or a technical college in Amersham, is unlikely ever to be a wasted investment.

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It occurred to me last week that the government's economic plight is somewhat akin to that of the current pubco environment.

Massive public (pubco) debts have to be serviced to keep the markets (bondholders) happy, and so they (pubcos) have to squeeze consumers (tenants) with tax rises (rising rents/drink prices).

But in squeezing consumers (tenants) the government (pubco) runs the risk of at once impoverishing and alienating the very consumers (tenants) it says it is trying to get going again, while making life difficult for itself by dampening demand (tenant's ability to survive) - and enthusiasm - in the wider consumer economy.

It's not rocket science to draw this analogy, I grant you, but c'mon, for homespun philosophy...what, say, six out of 10?