Two slices of red meat a day can kill you!

According to new "research" BBC, 25th February 2011, more than 500g of red or processed meat per week can give you bowel cancer. I abhor these scare-mongering stories that crop up from time to time. Once upon a time red wine was a definite no-no - until another bright spark (probably paid equally handsomely for a new research project) claimed the contrary: not only was red wine not bad for you, it was positively good in moderation. And there, surely, is the key. Too much of anything, with too little variety of diet, may be harmful; I personally would would want to see real empirical proof, obtained from a statistically-significant sample before according these latest findings much credence.

The Fox & Grapes, Wimbledon Common

I've just come across this preview of a pub I used to work in about 30 years ago. The Handbook, 19th January 2011

It's definitely come up in the world since my day!

I'd dropped out of catering for a while to do a "proper job" but it was well and truly in my blood by then - and my usual saviour, The Dog & Fox was fully staffed. Thus, I ended up in Camp Road - I kid you not! Even in 1981 it was 30 years behind the time, run by Mr and Mrs Horder:  I think his name was Peter but I can't remember hers - she was the epitome of Hyacinth Bucket and the staff were certainly not allowed to be familiar.
Ozzie Osbourne, who lived over the road then, was a regular - and boy did she fawn! The current poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, who was a couple of years younger than me, came in a few times while I was working - not so long ago I wrote a poem about her! But that's another story....

Mrs Bouquet  (sorry, Horder) was inordinately proud of her "platters" - just like Hyacinth and her "candle-lit suppers" - which were just slightly-large plates of butties or Ploughman's with a bit of tortoise-chewed lettuce. Having said all of that, it was a pub with character and I certainly wish the new French team every success.

True to type?

It doesn't take a lot to distract me from work - particularly on a miserable Monday morning - so I chuckled when I read the heading "SHATfesbury [my caps] to acquire £10.25m Enterprise package".
Morning Advertiser, 21st Feb 2011 Wonder how long it will be before their typographers get it right (or did they)?

Enterprise culture at Pubco giant?

In a story which demonstrates the bizarre nature of current Pubco operations, an  Enterprise lessee has bought, at auction, the freehold of the pub he rents - and now receives income on - from Enterprise.
Morning Advertiser, 17th February 2011.
Even factoring in the barrellage kick-back the Pubco receives, it must appear to any sane person that so-called "sale-and-leaseback" is another junk-bond debacle waiting to happen when the sub-tenant pays substantially less than he receives from his tenant.

Any excuse for a ceilidh....

Planning early for St Paddy's day:
Morning Advertiser, 14th February 2011

The voice from Irish-America says:  "They have tried to make it into a week here - just what we need, more drunks p****ng in the streets....."

A tax or attacks on boozing at home?

Hands up if you think that piling more tax on off-licence booze is going to magically cure pre-loading and binge-drinking!

Morning Advertiser, 10th February 2011

 I, personally, couldn't disagree more! The complex issues of pre-loading and binge-drinking are social ills that will not be affected by price at all - in fact, as disposable income is diverted from other purchases, we may see different social ills growing. There is no quick fix and I am getting more and more irate at reading, without transparent empirical evidence, the words of "experts" whose jobs and little empires depend on making this sort of glib proposal.

When is a carvery not a carvery?

Hands up, anyone who has ever heard of a Curry Banquet Carvery?
Morning Advertiser, 9th February 2011

This is a masterclass in  how to fill a Press Release with a load of waffle. "We're offering a carvery but we're not turning into carvery venues....and, actually, the equipment is just a mobile bain-marie that we'll use for other purposes when it suits us!"

Root Beer - the ancestor of Kaliber?

About 20 years before Kaliber was invented, a schoolfriend of mine mentioned - we were about 10 at the time - that his mother was buying him some root beer. Beer? Now, admittedly, another friend was nicking cider  from the stockroom of his parents' off-licence and we'd go and get hammered among the gorse bushes on Grange Hill....But beer? I couldn't conceive, with the exception of ginger beer, of non-alcoholic beer.

This, from Everyday Goodness, sounds a really good (trade) deal:
Cases of 24 bottles, each bottle is 355 ml.
Offer price 24 x £0.72  = £ 20.74 including VAT per case.
10-30 cases, £10 for carriage .
>31 cases,  £free delivery.

Posters available for Point of Sales advertising.
www.everydaygoodness.net

A Rum Do

Malcolm Gosling, the 7th generation of the family-owned Goslings Rum brand will be back in Blighty and available for interviews on March 9-11th.  He has plenty of stories handed down from previous generations  as the Gosling’s family history actually begins in the UK dating back to 1806. London wine & spirits merchant James Gosling set out from England with £10,000 of cargo, aboard the chartered clipper Mercury with merchandise bound for the New World - America. The voyage was a difficult one. Ninety-one consecutive days of calm left the crew and passengers in dire straits and the charter of Mercury was fast running out. When they finally made port in Britain’s oldest colony St. Georges, Bermuda, Gosling decided to stay and set up shop on King's Parade, in December 1806. To this day the company remains the oldest surviving business in Bermuda and is still a family concern. The Goslings soon started producing rum which quickly became the nation’s favourite.

The much loved Dark n’ Stormy® cocktail is celebrated every year on National Bermuda Day, the 24th May, and this year Goslings  want to bring some of the Bermudian Spirit to Blighty to have some fun.  Originally created by the British Navy in Bermuda over 100 years ago, sailors added local Goslings Black Seal Rum to their own home-made ginger beer, to ‘spice’ it up. The drink took its name from the colour of a cloud that only a mad sailor would dare sail under.  Today the drink is trademarked and has fans all over the world. The rich, smooth, full-bodied taste of Goslings Black Seal Rum is nuanced with butterscotch, vanilla and caramel, complimented by the ginger beer, it creates an intoxicatingly spicy drink with a bit of a bite. You’ll find it served in bars and restaurants all over the island!
The Dark ‘n Stormy®, Goslings and Family Reserve Rum is becoming a staple on bar menus in the finest of establishments here in the UK too.

Creating a Dark ’n’ Stormy is a Breeze
The Dark ‘n Stormy®, is simple to make, yet refreshing to drink so we’re not surprising it’s becoming more and more popular with the British public at home.
Load a tall glass with ice cubes, pour in some ginger beer,  add a large measure of Goslings Black Seal Rum and prepare to be refreshed. If you’d like to get creative, run a lime wedge around the glass rim and drop in.
 
If you’d like to talk to Malcolm Gosling about his experiences as the 7th generation building the family business in an international brand, or simply want a guided tour of what the Bermudians like to do on National Bermuda Day (and how many Dark n Stormy’s they like to drink) then mailto:Sarah@lovedrinks.co.uk

*Gosling’s Black Seal and Dark ‘n Stormy are registered trademarks of Gosling’s Export (Bermuda) Limited, Hamilton, Bermuda

Marstons' Ale House - a new "concept"?

I had a good chuckle when I read this report about Marstons rolling out a concept called "Ale House", which sound suspiciously like traditional pubs - remember them?
Morning Advertiser, 9th February 2011

Thanks to my old friend/fellow licensee Don Woods, whose catchphrase was: " I wouldn't have it in a (expletive deleted) Ale House!", I called my first solo limited company - back in 1988 - Alehouse Investments Ltd!

Ever want to blow up your own pub?

The Inflatable Pub Company

This made me chuckle!

Greene King's Food Fare

 Greene King make lovely beer - I have very happy, if rather hazy, memories of quaffing copious amounts of Abbot Ale from the wood in the Marie Lloyd Luncheon Club* back in my college days. From local brewer in the 1970s, the company has come a long, long way - but I couldn't help feeling rather uninspired by the relaunched "Food Made Easy" package for their tenants and lessees.
Morning Advertiser, 4th February 2011

* Don't be fooled by the posh name - the M-L, as it was colloquially called, was not known for its food but, for a fiver a year, offered the opportunity to carry on drinking through the afternoon when our archaic licensing laws forced the pubs to close at 3pm.
A favourite haunt of trade union officials,  I blame my Sociology lecturers - Penri Griffiths in particular, for corrupting me. (Ahem!)

Nutritious Red Tape

If you run a restaurant, cafe, takeaway - in fact, any food outlet - YOU PERSONALLY are responsible, apparently, for the growing number of lard-arses in the UK. The latest forum on food diktats centred on healthy-eating options  (Big Hospitality, 2nd February 2011) with one suggestion being that those dishes which meet the criteria should be highlighted on menus so that terminally-vegatative customers wouldn't have to think for themselves. I had hoped, with a cull of the quangos, that individuals would be obliged to act as grown-ups and take responsibility for themselves and their progeny.
Fat chance!

Paddy Wetherspoons?

Further to my report on 17th November 2010 about M&B (formerly Bass) selling 333 (why?) surplus pubs to Stonegate, the newest kid on the block, it's just been announced that the Oirish bars in the deal are to be rebranded from O'Neill's to Molloys. Morning Advertiser, 31st January 2011

Food at less than three-and-a-half quid a head for a main course - who does that sound like? Mind you, the colcannon mash is a bit tempting.......