Beaujolais Nouveau and the Art of Sinking

With the non-event of Beaujolais Nouveau Day drawing near, the BBC News website reliably sinks to the occasion with a non-article pondering the non-question of whether there is a Beaujolais Nouveau revival under way. It begins, solidly enough, with a look back at the peak of the Beaujolais Nouveau craze in the Eighties and a mention of the Japanese enthusiasm for the stuff. Then, clutching at some handy statistics, it suggests that yes, maybe, there's been a revival of interest in the UK, perhaps because the wine now tastes better... Around this point, the hapless writer scratches his head, stares into space a while and remembers the question he started with. He assures us - on the basis of one wine bar owner's uncorroborated testimony - that Beaujolais Nouveau Day is still huge in Swansea, and getting bigger every year. By now losing the will to live, the writer decides it's time to wrap up - and, in a fine display of the art of sinking, wrap up he does, with a deflating final quotation that brings the piece to a gloriously bathetic end. 'A temporary spike in retro-nostalgia' indeed. Couldn't have put it better myself.