Kid-proof shops in a hip-hop stylee.

(From Off Licence News)

Now that Mosquito devices have been demonised by the Children's Commissioner, beleaguered retailers may be forced to look for alternatives to high-pitched squeals to deter menacing kids from hanging around their forecourts. The answer is simple: try to out-teenage the teenagers. Write all signs in laboured text language ("CR8S OF BREZR 4 10 QWID"), change the shop name to something like Four-pack Shakur's, and make embarrassingly dad-like conversation with da kids about the graffiti mural of Jay Zed you're planning for your shutters. Within a week the only under-25s in your shop will be harmless, bookish spods buying ruby port for their grans.

You couldn' make it up Yes, we know it's not big or clever to laugh at people's names. But was there anyone in the Guildhall for the recent WSET graduations who didn' silently rejoice in the fact that the winner of the Wines of Portugal Scholarship was Waitrose wine adviser Nicholas Sherry? We don' like change ... Intriguing news from Harveys of Lewes, where the creation of a microbrewing plant next to the reverse osmosis machine means the brewery shop might one day be able to offer a strange new product alongside its award -winning ales: lager.

"It theoretically enables us to generate the original liquor - water that we brew with - from any number of sources," explains managing director Hamish Elder. "For example, we can reproduce the water of P lzen so we can brew a proper, gen uine pils ner lager." Harveys devotees are not known for their love of change (just ask Greene King). The conundrum for Hamish and his team is whether the locals will embrace a Harveys lager with eager enthusiasm, or whether they will march down Cliffe High Street with blazing torches. You can never quite tell in Lewes.

Simply outrageous Hysterical locals in various areas - often the sort of locations where a lot of sportswear is sold, but not much sport is played - frequently object to licence applications from retailers they don' like the sound of. Bargain Booze has had this problem on more than one occasion, purely as a result of misconceptions about its name. Recently Booze Buster's fascia so offended the burghers of ...