England Get The Bird

Have a look at this picture. This South African pigeon, already recognizing that he would need to put up with a lot of noise at the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town, decided to at least perch somewhere he would not be disturbed. His chosen place at the top of the net of the Algerian goal during their World Cup match against England would appear to have been carefully calculated if it is true that, as suggested by Henry Winter of the Daily Telegraph, the canny bird actually changed sides at half time. Certainly, Mr. Pigeon's choice of venue ensured no ruffled feathers from a flying Jabulani. He would have been in more danger in the stands. Bookmakers should take note of the predictive powers of the South African pigeon.

By contrast, the England manager, Fabio Capello celebrating his 64th birthday on Friday, looked to be a man under considerable pressure. Before the match, the media enjoyed referencing the Beatles song "When I'm Sixty Four" inviting readers to suggest appropriate lyrics for the occasion. That moment has now passed. For the sake of Fabio's health, the nation will be holding it's collective breath hoping that another track from Sgt. Pepper will be invoked on Wednesday afternoon in Port Elizabeth. "Getting Better"....

Poor Britannia?

So, how bad are things in the U.K. really? Hot on the heels of the new coalition government's proclamation that things were much worse than expected, comes the inconvenient conclusion of the newly formed Office of Budget Responsibility that, actually, it's er..not THAT bad! Whilst the politicians argue about the details, a surprisingly upbeat set of results from Majestic Wines this week would suggest that there is, at the very least, some cheer left in the economy.

Majestic posted a pre-tax profit of £16m for the year to March 2010, a very impressive increase of 117% over the previous year. Interestingly, sales of fine wine (classified as £20 per bottle and above) rose by the largest measure - over 22% and online sales rose by almost 20%. For a nation barely out of recession, these are amazing statistics.

It's not new, of course, to suggest that the wine and spirit trade is immune to economic factors and perhaps in this case, the steep increase in consumption is directly related to the depth of the downturn. Has Majestic just had much greater nous than their competitors over this period or is this performance telling us that there is surprisingly resilient spending power left in the economy? Or is everyone broke but determined not to let a little financial difficulty get in the way of a respectable Pinot Noir? Above all, in credit crunch Britain, it would be interesting to know, apart from the 20% online transactions, how much of the £200m+ in store sales was accommodated with a little help from a "flexible friend".....