It's a blow-out THE GASTRODOME Factor was pretty well the
only indicator that the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee failed to monitor, but the Governor ought to have taken them all out out to lunch and shown them what was going on — money being splashed around like soup, consump- tion that could not be more conspicuous, inflation in action (and in waistlines). Before they meet next week, they should test the market. New gastrodomes are still coming on stream but I sense that the binge is near its peak or even past it. Elsewhere in the economy, indigestion has set in. Sadly but sensibly, the owners of the Ivy and Caprice are selling out for a reputed 115 milli& and may well have got their timing right. One of these days Marco BeIgo Con- ran will reopen the Bank of England as a gastrodome and find that nobody turns up. Meanwhile a civil response on the tele- phone — 'Certainly, sir we have plenty of tables, and when would you like to have dinner?' — will tell us that the British econ- omy is cooling and that the great gastro- boom has blown out.
Previous page
