An interesting few months to come
This time last year I wrote about the inaugural Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) select committee hearing, held at Westminster, which put a marker down for the tied pub industry to get its act together 'or else'.
When the BIS reconvenes in just over six months time tied pub operators will need to show they have smartened up their collective acts. Many will be able to do just that. Codes of practice, while pilloried by some, are a step in the right direction.
But before we get to flaming June and another grilling for senior pub industry figures, the subject of what happens at the country's largest pubco will occupy many a column inch, not least in this here organ. One analyst put it to me that "every option available [to Punch Taverns boss Ian Dyson] will be aired, either overtly or covertly" to gauge its popularity.
This is perhaps a somewhat cynical view. One hopes Dyson will have confidence enough in his own plans for the pubco that he won't need to trail - or indeed trial - potential ideas in public.
Timing-wise, we'll see soon enough what he and his financial advisers have in mind. Whatever he decides, there is every chance that Punch will end up looking radically different from its current guise.
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The party spirit is finally descending, thank Gawd, and for a while most people will be able to focus on having - as well as offering their customers - a good time.
Pubs are among the best venues for having fun. My own 'favourite' Publican moment of the past year was donning a toilet costume for our recent WaterAid Pub Quiz. Such was the worthiness of the cause I didn't even mind fellow quiz contestants saying things like: "We always knew you were full of s***, Hamish." Merry Christmas!
