Time to bury bad news, or just Matt Hancock?

Probably in keeping with most other beer writers, I’ve run out of things to write about. With the entire hospitality sector on hold, and all but essential travel on hold, there really isn’t much of merit to report on at the moment. The story below, which I saw on an Irish news site, did catch my eye though, so read on.

The news is that all major beer distributors in the Republic, are to cease supplying beer in kegs.  This is a move to counter the rise of “shebeens” – unlicensed premises where surprisingly large numbers of people were gathering for a drop of draught beer. As well as flaunting licensing regulations, such places were obviously in contravention of the country’s strict lock-down rules, although despite the increase in risk to public health, one can’t help a grudging admiration for Irish ingenuity. 

Kegs were on sale at cash & carries, something I have seen over here in the UK, so by cutting off the supply of draught, the authorities are clamping down on these illegal drinking dens. However, what’s to stop the people behind these places from stocking up with bottles and can from the supermarket (or even the local cash & carry), instead? 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, “Try and make people moral, and you lay the grounds for vice.” Even if these rules are promoted under the guise of public health, people will still find a way around them, regardless of the consequences. Take a look at the USA during the era of Prohibition if you don’t believe me.

Returning to not having much to write about, I’ve been busy raking through the annals of this blog in order to find material for inclusion on my new website – Paul’s Beer Travels, in case you missed the previous article! I came up with apiece about the Rhineland city of Cologne, Köln in German, and its famous beer style known as Kölsch.

There was plenty I’d written previously that I could revamp and recycle, and if you head over to the website you can read all about Kölsch – the taste of Cologne. One reason I’d produced so much material is the fact I’ve made seven visits to the city, with five of them being for business reasons. These trips were made as part of a team manning our company trade stand at the International Dental Show (IDS).

This event, which takes place during March,  every other year, is by far the world’s largest dental show. It occupies several halls of the Köln Messe (the Cologne city exhibitions halls), and just about every company involved in the field of dentistry is normally there. Sadly, due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, we won’t be exhibiting in 2021, having wisely taken the decision back in October, to cancel our space.

This year would have represented my final IDS, so the cancellation is particularly sad for me, but it is nothing compared to the impact the loss of tens of thousands of visitors will have on the local economy. The same can be said in respect of trade shows the world over, that have been forced to cancel in the wake of the pandemic. There are still doubts over the postponed Tokyo Olympics which, despite the bravado of the IOC, are looking increasingly in doubt.

From a personal viewpoint, it’s not the trade show itself that I will miss, it’s more the opportunities for socialisation in the evening, that it offers. Whilst these evenings might appear as nothing more than a “piss-up” to some people, they normally involve dining with customers and/or suppliers, and this is where relationships are strengthened, and the real deals often made. All the pundits expounding the virtues of “virtual“ Zoom meetings, forget the importance of face-to-face meetings in business negotiations, and if these get togethers are “lubricated” by more than a little alcohol, then so much the better!

A small ray of light is the news that the show has been rescheduled for the third week in September, but whether my company will bite the bullet and book a stand, remains to be seen, but one trip that is presumably off, is the already postponed visit to the Czech Republic in March. I haven’t heard from the organisers yet, but with much of northern and central Europe facing similar restrictions to us, the chances of this trip to Pilsen taking place, must be minimal.

This brings me on to the email I received yesterday, from Easy Jet, informing me that the voucher I received for last year’s cancelled flights can now be used. The voucher is only valid until the end of June, but the good news is that it can be used to book any future flights that are available at that point in time. A visit to either Germany or Czechia for early autumn, would therefore be good bet, always assuming that the government release us from our current misery!

Those words aren’t written completely in jest, as I remain deeply suspicious of the Department of Health’s motives on this. Today, that pimply, shifty-eyed excuse of a Health Minister Matt Hancock, threw into the ring, the ultimate caveat for extending lockdown indefinitely, by stating that his biggest concern was “yet to be discovered variants of the virus.”

Well hold on a minute matey – yes you with that awful pink tie! Viruses mutate all the time, with most new variants becoming less lethal. If Hancock is prepared to keep us locked down because he is afraid of something that MIGHT possibly happen in the future then, to quote Private Frazer, “We’re all doomed, doomed!”

Unfortunately, Mr Hancock is so far up his own backside, and so engrossed in believing his own rhetoric, that unless there’s a concerted opposition to this lunacy, we might just end up confined in our own houses for eternity. Don’t these clowns realise how absurd their pronouncements are?

Ignoring this overgrown public schoolboy, and returning, for a moment, to the subject of cancelled holidays, Mrs PBT’s and I have credit with Cunard, in respect of last spring’s canceled cruise. Cruising hasn’t re-started yet, so we will probably carry the credit over for a further year.

Cruise ships are notorious for the spread of things such as norovirus, and at the beginning of the current pandemic, several ended up as floating “plague hotels.” I’m not totally risk averse, but I think I’d rather wait until Coronavirus is well and truly under control, and preferably on its way out, before booking a cabin on a liner with a couple of thousand other potential plague carriers. You never know our friend at the DoH might just be right about that mutant variant!