I'm surrounded by champagne.
Not only is the festive season starting to gear up, but my local Waitrose supermarket, which has been closed for a couple of weeks for a re-furb, has just re-opened featuring not only a sushi bar, but a sparkly new champagne bar!
WTF?!? (As my kids would say).
Since I discovered this, I've been amusing myself by imagining the meetings they must have had back in head office.
SCENE 1: WEEKLY STATUS MEETING
BOSS (a misogynist): Chaps, last week I asked you all to go away and come up with ideas for how to get ladies to spend EVEN MORE money in our already vastly overpriced stores.
What have you come up with? What do women around here spend their husband's money on?
MINION 1: Errr - wine. Lots of it.
BOSS: We already sell wine. Idiot.
MINION 2: Yes, but they buy our wine then dash home as quickly as possible to drink it.
Why don't we open a champagne bar in-store? Then they never need to leave! Throw in a sushi bar and there's everything a middle-class, middle-aged mum needs to survive, all under one roof.
They don't even have to move when they want to socialise with friends - they can just message them to pop on over to Waitrose and get the party started here!
BOSS: I LOVE IT! I'M A GENIUS!
Help me build on this. After all, there's no 'I" in team, right boys?
What happens AFTER they've had lunch at our sushi bar, done their weekly shop, invited all their lady friends round for a party at our champagne bar and got drunk?
I'll tell you what! They have to stagger back through our store and - inhibitions loosened, and too squiffy to read our over-inflated price tags - they'll spend all their remaining money on our products!
Let's run my idea up the flagpole and salute it!
We're going to be EVEN RICHER! Crack open the champagne - we're celebrating!
THE END.
(This meeting may sound farcical, but in my twenty years in advertising I spend hundreds of hours in meetings JUST LIKE IT).
Yet more evidence that the world has gone mad.
In other news: if any of you are fans (like me) of audio books, then you might like to know that there is going to be an audio version of my book (The Sober Diaries).
My publishers sent me a recording of a professional actress reading the first chapter of my book. It's very odd listening to someone else being me. She sounds just like I wish I did, but (sadly) don't.
If you'd like to be the very first person to pre-order a copy of the audiobook, then click here to go to my Amazon page.
Also, exciting news if you're in Germany (totally irrelevant if not): a German publisher is keen to publish a german version of The Sober Diaries next year. Hurrah! Or should I say Hurra!?
(It turns out that 'Hurrah' is one of the few words that is shorter in german than it is in english).
And, finally, there's lots more on the SoberMummy Facebook page. Click here to visit, 'like' to stay updated.
Love to you all,
SM x
