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WHEN MONEY’s tight and hard to get/And your horse has also ran,/When all you have is a heap of debt/ –A pint of plain is your only man.

Today Guinness celebrates the 250th anniversary of the decision by Arthur Guinness, the son of a land steward, to invest some of his £100 legacy in the 9,000-year lease on a rundown brewery in Dublin’s St James’s Gate. And, as another of the striking, often witty advertising campaigns that have been hallmarks of the company reminds us, they will be raising glasses in every corner of the world to Arthur, farmers, llamas, even parsnips. No matter, as long as the glass contains the black stuff (actually dark ruby) – as 10 million do every day, in 150 countries.