Karen Black: Is it paranoia when they really are out to get me?

Painful as it is to share these defects with you, share I must:

• I am blonde - and as we all know blondes are stupid. We are now the acceptable face of parody and humour as we can no longer say anything about anyone else in case the PC brigade get us. Strange as it may seem though, the only stupid blondes I know dye their roots dark brown. I know, weird.

• I am only five foot tall - Tall people earn more apparently

• I have a local accent - In a country governed by Received Pronunciation nothing says "stay where you are, eejit" than a local accent

• I am working class - I'm afraid my old school tie was used more often to shorten my skirt than it was to get me in the right club/job/royal enclosure

• And the big no no - I am female.

What, I hear you cry, have these got anything to do with running a pub?

Both Peggy Mitchell and Bet Lynch have most or all of the same defects as I do, but with bigger boobs which, incidentally, is the one(?) criterion that negates all of the above, and, you silly billies, they aren't real - the characters I mean, not the boobs.

It will all start to make sense when I explain that this week's blog is about The Brewery (cue dramatic music).

I would imagine anyone reading this will have their own tales of woe in relation to dealings with their own brewery and have their own top tips they could share, but as stated in the title, I'm not paranoid; they are out to get me.

My brewery - shall we call it Stephen and Nigel to protect the guilty? - have a very strange approach, as far as I can tell. They appear to spend £millions on glossy publications, special events and a sifting process that takes months, to ensure they match the right person to the right pub.

They then proceed to bleed the tenant dry as we strive to clean up the mess the brewery has given us and not fulfil any of the things said in the brochures or the contract ensuring the right tenant runs away as fast as our little legs can carry us. But it could just be me.

I realise the list (above) plays a part and I not only expect, but deserve to be treated as a brain dead buffoon by these really intelligent super people, how could I hope to compete, to reach even their coat tails, but I really don't see how working against a tenant helps their business in the long run.

Perhaps they make more money selling cans to Tesco and the like so they don't care whether every pub in the country closes.

Perhaps they are working with unknown forces to keep the working class in front of the telly where subliminal images are broadcast to ensure we don't rise up and walk it down from Jarrow again. Ok, so maybe I am a little paranoid.

But given their track record paranoia is the least of my mental illnesses.

I have gotten used to the weekly run through of things that are not repaired, some of which include:

• The drains

• The heating

• The lights

• The windows

To the point where I would feel bereft if I no longer needed to mention them.

I've also gotten used to stuff not turning up when promised or turning up in mysterious but impractical ways.

My particular favourite was the promotion material provided if we bought four cases of a Northern bottled beer.

We bought the four cases and everything came. Except we couldn't use it as they didn't send the promotional bottles to go with the promotional material, so with no competition codes the materials went straight in the bin.

Or the food parcel that came to start our little shop with no RRPs included. Oh, the hours of fun we had checking prices.

Of course it's annoying that everything I plan or advertise comes to naught as the brewery do, or more often, don't do something they've agreed to do.

So moving forward without the usual three steps back is pretty much impossible, but it's familiar, it's cosy and it does give me fuel for my annoyance, which for an old grump like me is a priceless commodity. Nevertheless, it is still a strange approach if you want the 'right' person to stick around.

However, this week I have had the delights of the refurb planners to enjoy and that's been a whole other ball game. (The refurb planners were meant to be here in December but just turned up, due to a HQ reshuffle apparently. It's comforting to know that when the bailiffs move in at least Hamish in Finance has a great desk).

Of course, there was the usual lip service to what I might want, the patronising speech about how selling the land at the back for hundreds of thousands of pounds had nothing to do with whether they should invest in the old place, from a moral perspective, but for me the piéce de résistance was the mention of the solar panels.

I suggested we should have solar panels put on our flat roof as part of the upgrade.

"No, we won't do that". "Why not?" says I in my usual dumb way. "After all, green credentials are the way forward for big companies these days, aren't they? Plus the bills on this place are astronomical, and we can sell some electricity back to the energy company".

"Yes, but we are not here to make you money" was the response.

And even though I am a working class, blonde midget with no chance of getting into Eton, I managed to understand this one very clearly.

"Just the other way around, then, is it?"

Anyone need a barmaid?