Archive for January, 2005

All around the country this weekend, publicans are quietly doing deals with each other, selling pubs discreetly, hoping not to damage further an already fragile market. Apart from the odd trophy sale (which are usually property deals in disguise), the bottom has fallen out of the pub market.

By the end of next year, 2 per cent of our population will be Chinese. This may be an extraordinary statistic, but in fact it should not surprise us. Walk into any Spar, Centra, Texaco or dry cleaner’s and you will see them – young, hard-working Chinese students.

Did you know that there are four people employed at Tesco to track planning, new suburban developments and the future motorway network? These people are watching, plotting and imagining the shopping landscape of 2015.They are concerned about where we will live and how we will get around. Will the new suburbs be grafted onto existing towns or will they be stand-alone affairs, located somewhere on a proposed motorway intersection, ring-road or flyover? And a host of other questions.

The Asian tsunami has refocused minds on Third World debt. Bono, politicians and aid workers have called for the cancellation of all debt and, in particular, the debts of tsunami-ravaged Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka.

What is your New Year resolution? Drink less? Exercise? Eat better food, more regularly and in smaller portions? Or are you going to take up swimming, yoga or Pilates?