All beers are created equal

Now don’t get me wrong - I’m not a complete philistine, I have a decent enough idea of what wine to drink with what dish. I’m not an expert, but certainly know my claret from a beaujolais. Saying this I can’t say I have such a refined palette that I turn my noise up at anything that isn’t to be found in Fortnum’s food hall. Many in the TV industry think they’re some sort of food and drink connoisseur, mistaking having worked on some shit piece cookery programme with having spent a stint in Escoffier’s kitchen. Being a runner you often have to cater for this week’s food fad from the self proclaimed gourmets of the industry to trump the team in the next edit suite.

This arsey attitude to what passes their lips also extends to their alcohol preferences. We had a new runner start last week, and come Friday night she was sent out to stock the suites with lager. Now unbeknown to her was that some beers are more equal than others and as it was on offer at the local off license, she came back with a 24 pack of Stella Artois thinking she’d receive praise for her forward thinking and money saving attitude. How the fuck was she to know that it’s a cardinal sin in the world of media to drink lager from a can (especially wife-beater). Plus the fact that the pretentious palettes of the egos within the facility will only drink beer imported from Thailand this week!

Come summer these cunts also like to crack open the corona, which has to have a slice of lime in the top please (or they refuse to drink it). Little do they know that in hot as fuck Mexico the lime is used to keep the flies out of your beer and sterilise the bottle, not as a fucking accessory to make them look cool. The poor girl was reduced to tears being publicly derided for her choice of beverage, and the general feeling that she was a tasteless prole. Thank god she didn’t get sent out to buy wine having confided with me that she was “a bit of a cava girl’. Imagine the faces of the clients if presented with a bottle of Asti Spumanta at the self congratulating backslapping ego massage of a completed online, complete with a Sicilian lemon grade.

So before you start work in the media, make sure your up to date on what’s hot on the streets Soho this week or you will suffer the same fate as our poor Stella girl.