In the fast-food industry, an employee who stays on for a whole year is awarded a star to wear on his chest. Someone so lacking in talent and ambition that he flips burgers for a second year gets a second star. Hence Billy Two Stars, a useless individual, going nowhere, without fresh ideas or innovation.

In the airline industry, seniority is all-important. The more senior you are the more choice you have and the more money you get. And sometimes the more stuck in your ways you become. When crew would brag of having 25 years’ experience I would ask, “Actually, that’s just one year of experience repeated 24 times. What have you learned in the last 12 months?”

In the wine industry the most exciting wines are being made by young, enthusiastic wine-makers. Men and more often, women, straight from university, with hands-on experience in the vineyards, eager to try new ideas and reluctant to follow in the footsteps of their predecessors. Not that they lack respect for the traditions and knowledge of the original wine-makers but ‘more of the same’ is not what they want to do. The result is new varietals being grown in older vineyards, new plantings in areas previously untried and modern techniques applied in the cellars to produce fresh, interesting and exciting five-star wines.

Not Billy Two Stars.