*delete any of these words you consider appropriate to make a good title!

OK I’m going to start this with a bit of a confession that acts as a preamble to the main story of the day, namely a bit of shoddy business practice by Red Bull.

We’ve been out this morning, showing off the building work that we’ve been doing over the last few months to some dear friends who happen to be property developers, therefore interested in building work. They loved our work and have reassured us that our efforts won’t be in vain. After the “grand reveal” we went to the pub with them for a convivial lunch at our local. We had a meal and I drank two pints (in the evening I’d not consider this to be very much) of Exmoor Gold, not a very strong beer. BUT – the key point is it is a proper hand-pump beer, made with love in a small brewery on Exmoor. Now, that’s what I call a beer. The other key point is that drinking at lunchtime is A VERY BAD IDEA!

When we arrived home, we were both a bit “tired” and DM declared that he needed a snooze, taking himself off to bed for an hour. I sat on the sofa and checked my emails to see if I’d been called for interview for any jobs (answer: no) and then browsed my way onto the BBC News site, from where I followed a link to a story about a little local (to Norwich) brewery (from this point known as “David”) called Redwell Brewery who have been subject of legal persecution by Red Bull (Goliath). Red Bull (two words both in common parlance) claim that Redwell (single word) beers might be mistaken for Red Bull and therefore the company are guilty of "passing off" or some other such nonsense.

You can see how this might be a good moment for me to turn into a raging BOB (see here) and get my typing fingers out…wave a red rag in front of my face after two pints of beer and I’ll rise to the challenge with the best of them!

I immediately trotted out a brief note to Redwell brewery “Hi, I have just read the ridiculous story about Red Bull pursuing you. I am utterly appalled and am just about to send them (RB) an email saying just that. Please don’t let the big guys win over this.

Even the kind of moron that buys Red Bull would surely find it difficult to mistake Redwell for Red Bull. Just because F1 and skydivers prostitute themselves to RB it doesn’t mean we all have to capitulate.

Keep up the good fight.”

Then I went onto Red Bull’s website, found the “contact us” page and sent them this:

“You are clearly behaving like a bunch of obnoxious bullies for your harassment of Redwell brewery. Why can't big corporations just accept that you are not there to play god, you are just businesses that people can choose to support or not.

Not even the kind of person who'd spend money on Red Bull could even be stupid enough to confuse the two companies or their products.

Why not just grow up and behave like dignified adults and let other businesses go about their business without interference?

Honestly - if I was a Red Bull drinker, this news would make me think twice about ever buying the brand again. Most ordinary people (in other words, your customers) would say they abhor bullies...think about it...are you REALLY going to get anything positive out of this kind of harassment?

Oh and just to be clear, I am not connected in any way to Redwell - simply an ordinary citizen who is shocked by your company's stupidity.

I do so look forward to hearing your reply because I'm sure it will be a corker.”

Then I slept on the sofa for an hour…

When I awoke, I looked at my emails – still no interviews – but a very sweet note from a nice chap called Mike at Redwell thanking me for my support. I looked at their website to see that there were obviously others who felt like me and they’d clearly received a lot of goodwill messages today.

On reflection, my note to Red Bull wasn’t my finest hour – looking at it again, I’d have changed some of the clumsy, written-in-a-slightly-squiffy-tired-hurry sentences but overall I stick by the points I made. You see I can’t believe how any legal system let them “protect” the words “Red Bull”. Both of the words are common parlance and both are single syllable. When I was working in business and trying to protect brand names even our own company lawyers wouldn’t let us try to protect simple phrases like this. As DM later remarked, no-one would confuse the two – it’s a bit like trying to say that someone checking into a Betty Ford clinic thought that what they were actually doing was buying a Ford Cortina.


The problem is that defending these cases is so expensive for small companies and the big corporate bullies have deep, deep pockets. It makes my blood boil that the world we live in allows this to happen to a group of friends trying to make an honest living by pursuing a centuries-old craft.

Anyway, needless to say, this BOB didn’t get a reply from Red Bull, not that I expected one really…but I daresay they’re preparing their defamation and breach of copyright claims against me as I type.