Quote of the Week
"There is a big increase in the number of Spanish tourists heading to Russia, the number is at 500,000, we have therefore decided to sign an agreement to stimulate, to favour, to f@*k," he said, pausing briefly before ending the sentence with "to support this tourism".
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero inadvertently used the F-word while expounding on a tourism agreement with Moscow in the presence of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev
One of the more stinging restaurant reviews of the past week was Matthew Norman's take on Boisdale of Belgravia. Amongst other quotes, the restaurant was described as "a patriotic Scot's act of vengeance against the English for the centuries of abuse and misrule" and calling it an "upmarket Angus Steak House".
Facts of the week
£1.99 pub meals
- Up to 1,000 Punch tenants will soon be able to sell meals from £1.99 (source Morning Advertiser). This should help tenants compete with food deals in nearby managed pubs. It may not be a panacea for all ills, but the application of managed pub central buying power to the tenanted estate is a big step in the right direction.
- Five meals will be available from Brakes and 3663, including pub favourites such as sausage and mash, and fish and chips. They can be sold for either £1.99, £2.99, £3.99 or £4.99, depending on local competition and the customer base. Gross profit depends on the supplier and selling point: selling £1.99 meals from Brakes offers a margin of 52%; on the £2.99 package, the margin would be 68%, based on 100 meals per week.
Who does well in a recession?
- A PWC report due out this week looked at 15 sectors of the economy and assessed their vulnerability to the downturn on the basis of a series of different measures that together add up to a sector-vulnerability index.
- These fall under three headings: current financial strength, cyclicality and growth potential. The least vulnerable sector would be one that entered the recession financially strong, was not exposed to the cycle and had a history of strong growth.
- The most vulnerable sector is financially weak, exposed to shrinking world markets and had a poor run of growth.
- What they end up with confirms that this is not a great time to be making things, particularly metal things. The most vulnerable sector is metal products, with engineering at No 4. Also in the top five most vulnerable sectors are financial services, hotels and restaurants, and transport.
- At the other end of the scale, utilities are least vulnerable, followed by food retailing and, also among the five least vulnerable, food manufacture. Surprisingly, chemicals and non-food retailing also feature. There may be a "survival of the fittest " element; some of the retailers that have already failed were probably past their sell-by date.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article5821711.ece
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