yet…!
Here is an extraordinary statistic from an article in the FT
Global drink stocks have sunk almost 8 per cent in the 12 months to February. Alcohol shares now trade at a significant discount to the rest of the consumer goods.
I would like to know if a comparable decline in UK booze stocks and booze sales has been occurring. I can confirm that my personal consumption has gone from a bottle of wine a day to nothing since the middle of November.
This graph shows the wealthy drink much too much but that they’re cutting back gradually- out of choice I suspect.
Diageo, good for Guinness and Johnny Walker has long been my bell-weather, since the days I hung out at their Edinburgh and London company bars with Steve Mingle chatting about darts and football.
Debra Crew, chief executive, also sees shifting habits as a key challenge facing the industry, telling a recent conference that moderation was the industry’s “biggest disrupter”, while low and non-alcoholic drinks were “one of our greatest opportunities”.
I’m sorry not to be fit enough to drink a lot but have found a new clarity of thinking after mornings emerged from a hangover haze. Infact I have found a self-respect in not drinking which is not a disrespect for those who do.
I find it hard to understand why non-alcoholic drinks are so bloody expensive when tap-water remains remarkably cheap. I find the attraction of sitting in a fine bar drinking at 0p a pint a refreshing economic experience. Debra Crew can go on all she wants but I’ll drink Thames Water when I’m down here and Highland Water next week when I’m up in Perthshire and I’ll be the happier for it.
You may consider this blog a far way from pensions but with being on the cancer pathway (looks like I’m clear) and being anaemic (am I really going to spend £5k to spend a day in the Princess Grace on April 8th) I am taking health remarkably serious. I have boozed, smoked and done a lot of other evil things that aren’t to be mentioned and I had to go through these with my new doctor who is going to stop me bleeding. He looked at me after reading my history and said “you are taking staying alive seriously”.
“What do you think Mr ..”
I said to the young consultant and the young consultant smiled at me and asked whether I still worked
“In pensions” I said.
“Good for you“ he said, “Have you got one? You don’t have to be an impaired life!”
“Cheeky doctor, we have ill health early retirement don’t you know!”
Living a later life, longevity’s what I’ve been thinking. Sure I miss walking round my mate’s cellar wondering what Burgundy or Sauterne we’ll be drinking, it’s good to sit at a PLSA stand and drink a wine from AXA’s vineyards in Bordeaux or go whisky-tasting with some consultant.
Even the nights on the sub £5 pints that exist at the Cockpit pub in Ireland Yard by where I live have lost their attraction (will I never drink a pint again?)
I like Terry Smith, he used to be a boxer and now puts his feet up in some coral island analysing stocks for his still substantial client bank, the FT drag him in to this conversation
Veteran investment manager Terry Smith dumped his fund’s stake in Diageo in January after almost 15 years over doubts about the company’s new management team and the threat to demand posed by the obesity treatments known as GLP-1s.
Studies show that weight-loss and diabetes drugs, such as Wegovy and Ozempic, could cut opioid and alcohol abuse up to half. “It seems likely that the drugs will eventually be used to treat alcoholism such is their effect on consumption,” Smith wrote. Diageo declined to comment on Smith’s divestment.
Well I guess I’m proof you don’t need expensive drugs even if it costs me a fortune to spend a day in a posh hotel hospital (neurology will stop me making that mistake).
I hope that obesity (no longer a threat) , cholesterol levels (halved since last October) and the prospect of a booze free future, do my prospects of getting paid to do nothing a lot of good.
I met an old workmate, Kevin Ronaldson on Thursday, he’s 67, he smiled at me and said “I’ve made it to my state pension”. I hadn’t seen him for 40 years (when we sold at Allied Dunbar), we’re both Zurich pensioners – sorry Zurich, but we’re not planning to rest six feet under any time soon!
