Excuses, excuses 

Attempting to order a much-needed Friday pint of Hoegaarden after work last week, I was disappointed to be told that there was none to be had. ‘Seriously,’ the barman told me, ‘it’s not just us, there’s a worldwide shortage’. Now leaving aside the possibility that this might be TRUE, and that mighty beer behemoth InBev, formerly Interbrew has just run out of its cloudy wheaty goodness, one wonders about the high risk strategy the barman was employing. ‘Worldwide shortage’ presumably implies ‘ so no point trying somewhere else for your pint, better choose something else here’. But blowback misfire response = ‘so it’s about to run out everywhere and you should immediately leave in search of the last remaining pints in Edinburgh’. Anyway, I figured that explained why the last time I’d had Hoegaarden in there it had tasted manky, and opted for a glass of wine instead, before discovering rare as golddust bottles of lovely lovely ORVAL in the off license on the way home.