I have been quiet of late, as I have been ensconced in Shepton Mallet, dealing with blue-sky thinking and endless paradigms, my eyes glazed from the cold blue flicker of non-stop powerpoint presentations. Horrid.

The only thing of any interest that I could find in our immediate surroundings was the Babycham factory. As soon as I saw the rather cool giant fawn standing out the front I felt a tiny pang of regret that, whilst not being the target market, I had never tasted this mythical concoction. I must confess that until I looked it up on the internet I didn't even know it was made of pears and not apples. Apparently they still make it, but, like Blue Nun and Watney's Red Barrel, I think its really one of those things that you had to have tried back in the 1970's for the full effect.

I wonder if we'll ever have another decade or era characterised by a drink? I suppose the last sociological drink phenomena was 'alcopops' in the 90's. Will this current era be remembered as the age of people who were dumb enough to get excited about putting ice-cubes in overpriced cider?