An Image Of 'Success'

Tonight is Puddlecote Inc's annual summer party (we can't hold it at Christmas because it's one of the busiest times of the year for us) where we put our corporate card over the bar and encourage our staff to eat and drink as much or as little as they choose at our expense till the place closes. I'm always a trifle perplexed that (tonight is the eighth year we've done this) only around 50% of our 100 odd employees take us up on the offer of free catering, free bar, disco and - of course for a transport company - free transport, but it's still the best few grand we spend as a business all year. And aren't we brilliantly blessed with the weather this time around!

However, before I wander off to get the welcome jugs of Pimms and ice buckets full of of free wine organised at this year's venue, thanks are in order to fellow jewel robber Mike F who has kindly sent me a graphic illustration of yesterday's blogpost stat.

Bearing in mind that campaigners for plain packaging both here in the UK and in Oz emphasised that the policy was purely to "protect children" from the temptation to smoke, here's how brilliantly that plan worked down under.

"Like a vaccine against smoking"

Stunning, isn't it?

Incidentally, although it's difficult to pin down exactly how many 12 to 17 year olds there are in Australia right now, we know that in 1995 there were 1.524 million of them. So taking population growth into account, that 0.9% increase represents around 150,000 extra teen smokers.

Well played, cobbers!