It's been a good week for ...
perk-free voting
If you thought Finland was all saunas, snow and elks, you'd be wrong. The country boasts the world's best education system and highest number of heavy metal bands per capita.But one of the most surprising statistics relating to this tiny country is that its people consume more coffee than anyone else. While the annual world average of coffee consumption is 1.3 kg per person per annum, a typical Finn shifts 12kg of coffee a year. I suppose you've got to stay awake somehow when it's dark all the time.
Politicians seeking power have not been slow to tap in to this national craving for caffeine.
The country goes to the polls next Sunday and it's a tradition for campaigners to serve free coffee during events. But that's now been stopped, not for fear of any corrupting influence, but following complaints from coffee shop owners that they were losing business.
Such handouts are banned in the UK, where the practice is known as treating.
The Finns, however, are not concerned with the nuances of low tactics. Finland is also top of the list of the world's least corrupt countries, according to the Corruption Perception Index.
No grounds for bribery, then. Not even coffee grounds.
It's been a bad week for ... perk-induced shopping
I can't say I darken the door of Waitrose very often. This might change, since the company is building a new supermarket just down my road, on land that was once used for sport.
But apparently it's a bit of a middle-class institution and Waitrose values its customers so much that loyalty-card holders are treated to free coffee at the in-store cafe when they shop (apologies if I'm preaching to the already converted).
But this doesn't seem to be swinging it in the present economic climate, what with austerity being so fashionable.
Discount grocery chain Aldi has now overtaken Waitrose in terms of UK market share.
I won't bore you with all the figures.
(OK. In the 12 weeks to 29 March, Aldi had a 5.3% share of the grocery market, according to research firm Kantar Worldpanel, ahead of Waitrose, which had a 5.1% share.)
Perhaps it's time for Waitrose to wake up and smell the competition.
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