So you've just graduated from university. It's time to leave your booze-drenched frat days behind and get a job. And then you see a help-wanted ad: TRAVEL. EXPLORE BEER. GET PAID.
Yes, you read that correctly: Florida-based World of Beer (WOB) is seeking young people to travel the world to eat and drink lots of free beer and get paid for it. The 77-outlet chain is offering $12,000 (U.S.) for the four-month stint, as the International Business Times reports. Oh, and travel and accommodation is included.
The job is no picnic. Actually, it's more like a pub crawl. Responsibilities include searching out the best craft beers and the best munchies to accompany said beers, as WOB's "Want to be a Drink It In-tern?" job call-out says.
So if you want that "Internship of a lifetime," as WOB calls it, you'd better act fast – applications close March 26. And just to reassure you about the interview, the ad offers: "Don't worry, beer will be present."
Just another brick from the wall
A sort of cottage industry has sprung up in east London: A black market in old bricks, particularly for cottages built of brick.
It's not just any old brick that's hot, but the black-flecked yellow Georgian variety known as "London brick" needed by owners of some heritage-designated houses for permits to build extensions, as The Telegraph reports. Other homeowners just like the antique look of them.
Dedicated building supply companies such as London Yellow Stock Bricks offer them up for £140 ($260) per 100, the equivalent of £1.40 apiece.
The trade in old bricks has become so lucrative that homeowners have reported waking up in the morning to find gaping holes in the walls of their front yards.
There's no respect for the dead, either, with cemeteries being particular targets. Where they once had to fend off body snatchers, they're battling brick snatchers often brazen enough to strike in broad daylight.
St. Patrick's Roman Catholic cemetery in Leytonstone has been hit twice in the past month, with exasperated – and mystified – caretaker John Sears playing cat-and-mouse with thieves.
"The last thing in the world you think is going to get stolen is your wall."
Michelin stars for Costco?
The warehouse-style retail chain is best known for its deep-discount food and household goods. If you have space to store 48 rolls of paper towels at home, then it's the must-go destination for your shopping.
It's not just in the merchandise category that Costco crushes its retail rivals. It's also a leviathan in hot dogs, selling about 100 million a year – four times more than what all major league baseball ballparks sell all season, Business Insider says.
What's more, it sounds as though they're the best dogs going, with a Business Insider headline earlier this week blaring: "We ate at a Costco food court, and it was one of the best dining experiences we've ever had."
The discerning food critics at Business Insider returned to Costco to share more details of the experience, with a Wednesday headline announcing: "I've eaten every item on Costco's food-court menu – here's the best one."
Spoiler alert: The "delectable" BBQ brisket sandwich took top honours, "and easily trumped everything else on the menu – even the hot dog." High praise indeed.
A world of colour
When one thinks of the adult entertainment industry, colouring books aren't the first thing that come to mind.
But the market niche, which first surfaced about two years ago, has become so hot that coloured pencil makers are running full tilt to supply the demand.
Germany-based Staedtler usually runs three shifts a day in the runup to the back-to-school season, but it's also been working full tilt because of the craze. Year-to-date production of its pencil crayons is up 14 per cent from 2015 levels, according to spokeswoman Erna Mueller, who expects the market to continue growing.
Ms. Mueller says the market took off after the publication of illustrator Johanna Basford's Secret Garden, which became a bestseller and sparked the first in a series of colouring books for adults. The trend caught on in South Korea, spreading to the U.S. and Britain and now catching on in Germany, Spain and other southern European countries.
Faber-Castell, like German rival Staedtler, has also enjoyed "double-digit growth," the Independent reported.
But not everybody's been making hay from the trend. Japan's Mitsubishi Pencil probably couldn't have got their timing more wrong: In December, it announced it was nixing its 12-colour line of pencils.
Let the festivities begin
It seems there are festivals for just about everything these days, but this one caught my eye when Report on Business editor Paul Waldie passed it along: "I am forwarding this to you on behalf of the International Festival for Business 2016."
Now, I'm not sure whether this means I'm on Paul's good list, or the bad one; at any rate, he pointed out that the annual biz-fest is fast approaching. And if you follow business, want to hear some international perspectives, and love festivals (who doesn't?), the IFB2016 is for you.
This year, it's running June 13 to July 1 in Liverpool and Disclosures couldn't help but notice a picture of British Prime Minister David Cameron is the first image that appears on the website's home page. The image fades away after about six seconds, which may be appropriate, given that his country is holding a referendum on June 23 to determine whether it will hightail it out of the European Union. While a "Brexit" would mollify the Europhobes, it would also savage existing trade arrangements and kick off two years of acrimonious (and expensive) divorce proceedings.
That'd be some festival.