The Shop That Died Of Shame

Each year, "Top Peoples' Shop" Selfridges (sorry, I don't know what a "Top Person" is) gets a lot of media play over their Christmas window displays. This year, with a theme of play, they invite customers and passers-by to reconnect with their inner child, lighting up their storefront all along Oxford Street with a riot of colour and cleverness based on Christmas Day in a dolls' house.

So far, so good. Then, this pic got picked up by several papers...


Could that be a female Frank Sidebottom? What a coincidence! The pic got picked up by some of the Frank Sidebottom fan groups on Facebook, with questions being asked about whether or not Selfridges had permission to use the likeness. Seems not - they hadn't approached anybody connected with the Sievey/Sidebottom estate. Well, after all, it could be Betty Boop. Right?

I went along this morning to see if there were any more faux Sidies. Oh yes. Several, in fact.









If that's Betty Boop, then I'm Walt Disney.

Selfridges ought to be ashamed of themselves for stealing a dead man's clothes, and I hope they do the right thing by either removing these heads from their display, or make a sizeable donation to the fund being set up to get a statue of the Great Man erected in Timperley.

First, There Was The Clone Beer. Now...?

...the UK may have its first clone brewery! Yes, folks, say hullo to Kent Brewery, a new start-up in the Garden of England. I say start-up, as the business is caught up in a planning dispute which has delayed their setting up in a permanent home. While they work with their prospective neighbours and the local authority, they are keeping their hands in with the help of a neighbouring brewer, said to be Larkins, to produce some test brews.

They do have a website, which has a wonderfully evocative theme about Kent's place in our brewing tradition, lofty ambitions in the area of provenance and the exciting possibilities of the New Hops. However, these are forward-looking brewers, as they explain,

[we] will not be recreating old recipes (although we may take guidance from the best), or keeping only to traditional hop varieties, because we are looking to the future rather than to the past for our inspiration.

Ah, guidance from the best. Who's the best? Might be the former employer of Paul Herbert (our Kentish Man), judging by the couple of unfined gyles of beer which have made their way to his old place of work. My source (we'll call him/her, "Deep Pint") takes up the tale.

Numbered Gyle 1, the first contained a 5.5% Porter, while the other cask is described as a "pale hoppy beer". Both might be described as 'signature beers' of the former employer. One has been a Champion Beer Of Britain. Recent sampling of Gyle 1 caused raised eyebrows, as the beer appeared to be exactly to the recipe of his old employers' Porter. A little side-by-side sampling took place outside the brewery, which confirmed the suspicions. According to Deep Pint, his erstwhile colleagues are "fuming" about what they see as ripping off their recipes.

Now, it's possible that Herbert is just using these recipes until his own brewery is up and running. Or perhaps "guidance" means copying lock stock and hopsack. Just to make sure, I expect his old mates will be in touch to wish him well and ask for their recipe book back.

Where's The Beer?

Greene King has launched a series of ads for press and TV, following a survey they commissioned asking punters what they thought made up the 'proper pub'.

I saw these two in yesterday's Observer...














There will be a series of six of these ads, picking up some of the popular responses from the survey. I could only find these two online, so I'm guessing the campaign will be refreshed by releasing the others through the duration of the campaign. I believe one deals with beer gardens.

The question I have for Greene King right now is: Where's The Beer? Shouldn't one of those glasses on the table in front of the settle, be a pint glass? You brew the stuff, don't you want to sell it in your pubs?