Pub Bitch: Osborne tells nation to drown sorrows in cider
Osborne: cider is the answer
Cider makers were dead chuffed last week when the Chancellor scrapped the 10 per cent above inflation duty hike on the stuff introduced by the last government. But was I alone in detecting a contradiction in George Osborne's attitude towards irresponsible drinking in his emergency Budget speech?
On the one hand he promised to report back in the autumn on how the government might target duty at the "products most associated with binge-drinking" — all good stuff — and then he announced the cider tax reversal would come into effect at the end of this month "just in time to celebrate England's progress to the quarter-finals, or else to drown our sorrows". 'Drown our sorrows'? How responsible is that? When I drown my sorrows I can barely walk.
Beer goggles
I've said it before and I'll say it again: 'Damn clever, those Japanese'. The latest wizard wheeze to wing its way westwards from the Land of The Rising Sun is 'tracking glasses'. Like ordinary glasses, only different, these specs have wee camera things imbedded in them, allowing market researchers to see exactly what the wearer is looking at, when, say, perusing the back-bar of one's local boozer.
Tobii Technology, the glasses' manufacturer, says they "will help greater levels of insight into the preferences, reactions and personal experiences of people in a natural environment". That's as may be; I once saw this sort of technology demo'd in a bar and the 'tracking dot' of male customers wearing the things rarely strayed off the barmaid's chest…
Mixing your drinks
Wisdom has it that one ought never to mix one's drinks. Chucking whisky or vodka into a pint of beer was never clever in my view but it seems that 'beer cocktails' are all the rage, at least in Canada. Nathan Cameron, a 'mixologist' for a chain of Irish pubs in that country, reckons pub-goers there are more open-minded than they used to be. "Flavoured beers act very well as suspensions for some great cocktail bases," he told a local newspaper.
Beer cocktails are genderless, apparently: "Typically men enjoy a great beer and women enjoy cocktails, but when you put the two together you can appeal to both groups, which really broadens the audience." Sounds like a one-way ticket to a sick bucket to me…
Hospitality hoe-down
What Can We Do Now (Save The Great British Pub), the charity single recorded to support the Save The Great British Pub campaign, is storming up the country's pop charts, apparently. Former licensee Inez Ward, who came up with the idea, points out that Bob James, the song's writer and singer, started his career in pubs. "Would these celebrities (celebrities? Ed) be where they are today if they had not had the platform to start their careers?" she wonders out loud.
"Pubs are part of our history, heritage and culture and we should be proud of them and what they do and we should all want to promote these benefits!" Right on love, but come on, did it really have to be a country & western-style tune?
Pic of the week
Reverse psychology genius? Or simply telling it like it is? This self-explanatory sign has been appended to the outside wall of the Railway Hotel in Faversham, Kent.
Can't think whio the landlord there might be... Answers on a postcard please.
If you've hung something similarly pithy on the wall of your pub send me a photo of it to pubbitch@thepublican.com.
We'll publish the best ones we receive. Promise.
You can now also find me on Facebook. You'll have to excuse my first name, my first owner was very cruel... Morag Pubdog - look me up!
