Read that left field article Keith Bott slid out last week. Something along the lines of "The Beer Tie is the Saviour of Cask Ale".

Frankly none of it made sense. Everything that was printed on the left side of the page was rhetoric about how marvellous the tie is and how it's been the lifeblood of HIS business (wasn't absolutely clear if he meant his brewery or his tied lease pubs where he is allowed to sell all of his own beers, er, free of tie which, on the face of it sounds like he's not leasing tied pubs the way the rest of the country understands them to be). AND on the right side of the page there was a blue sky thinking column that came out of a conversation our totally cuddly Keith had with the tall and eloquent Julian Grocock where Keith tried to lay out a manifesto for the 'EASYTIE' or some such rubbish - in total contradiction of everything he's been spouting off on the other side of the gutter (as in the magazine gutter that is).

So. ON the left you have the tie is the glorious saviour of all things British that smell of beer and on the other a series of pointers laying out how the tie could work in an ideal world.

That's soft scrambling your eggs and having them hard boiled at the same time Mr Bott. Or something like that. But then, as a member of the BBPA front line it's the sort of dichotomy you'll be promulgating before long without noticing the contradictions.