I swear it wasn’t me

I’ve shed most of my freelance clients over the past few years, but one popped over last night to get a WordPress lesson.

As we were sitting at the dining table together the most awful stench wafted up and I froze in horror before hastily assuring my client that it was Charlie the Moodle who’d farted, not me!

A few minutes later a weird, fishy smell started drifting around and I panicked that the end was nigh for Charlie if his farts were smelling like that, before realising it was the neighbours doing some barbecuing on the balcony below.

I once again hastily assured my client that I wasn’t the one smelling fishy.

I’m fairly sure she believed me on both counts.

After she left I made myself a dinner of steak with sweet potato fries, roast broccolini and blue cheese sauce then hit the keyboard again because blimey it’s been a busy week in the drinks world.

I normally put out one newsletter, but this week it’s about to be three.

The first one went out on Tuesday morning, announcing that Endeavour Group (which owns Dan Murphy’s and BWS) had a new CEO. This is a big deal in the drinks universe because Endeavour is the major player, the search for a new CEO has been going on forever, shareholders aren’t happy with their returns and the successful candidate is ex-Virgin Australia CEO Jayne Hrdlicka, who the media have already dubbed “Jane Hard Liquor”.

The media release landed as I was heading to the office, so I had to write the story and compile the newsletter on my phone on the bus, which resulted in me – oh nooooooooo – sending out the newsletter with last week’s email title on it.

Ooooops!

So I had to frantically send it out again with the correct title to all the people who hadn’t opened the first one yet.

The second one went out on Wednesday, following the ASX announcement that Australian Vintage had a new CEO. This was also big news because the former CEO was controversially sacked then rehired five months ago and has gone again. Unfortunately that newsletter only went out to two thirds of my database due to the aforementioned database issue, so it had to be sent out again to the other third.

Double ooooops!

I thought that was me and newsletter mistakes over for the week, but an email popped into my inbox at the end of yesterday announcing that Accolade Wines and Pernod Ricard Winemakers have officially merged and also have a new name, Vinarchy, plus plans to ditch about 50 drinks labels. Again, this is very big news in the drinks world, so I had to prep yet another newsletter.

I won’t bother you with links to all the news, as it’s not particularly juicy for anyone who’s not in the industry, though you might like to read about a haggis cocktail a Scottish bartender has made … Would you be game to try it?

OK, I’d better walk the dogs and press send on the latest newsletter before I start my day job. Surely no other big news will break today … I have a drinks function on tonight and I’d really like to relax for a few hours!

Song of the day: Nirvana “Smells like teen spirit”