Citations:fruit and flowers

English citations of fruit and flowers

(euphemism for drugs or other illicit material):

• 2008 January 10th, “From major to minor”, in The Economist:

  £200,000 a year went on sundries euphemistically referred to in the music business as “fruit and flowers”

• 2009, Jonathan A. Knee, Bruce C. Greenwald, Ava Seave, The Curse of the Mogul: What's Wrong with the World's Leading Media Companies, →ISBN, page 152:

  The discovery by the private equity firm that recently bought EMI that the “fruit and flowers” cost item on the company’s financials was actually a euphemism for “drugs and whores” suggests the continuing risk of ignoring more traditional operating metrics and controls in media

• 2011 March 28, Brian Boyd, “Fear and loathing in Glasvegas”, in Irish Times‎^[1]:

  In rock terms you can break the code of the euphemisms easily enough. “Fruit and flowers” (as on a backstage rider) is cocaine and groupies while “exhaustion and dehydration” can be anything from a psychotic breakdown to a Class A overload.

• 2014 October 5, anonymous author, “'I like the way MDMA gives you a deep sense of connection to your friends'”, in The Guardian‎^[2]:

  Bigger DJs put requests for drugs on their rider. "We just put it on expenses as ‘fruit and flowers’," a promoter at a major nightclub told me this year.

• 2016, Sebastien Canderle, The Debt Trap: How Leverage Impacts Private-Equity Performance‎^[3], →ISBN, page 161:

  […] EMI used to spend £200,000 a year on fruit and flowers at their West London offices or £20,000 on candles to decorate a Los Angeles apartment to entertain artists – the Terra Firma team quickly learned that fruit, flowers and candles are the industry’s accounting euphemism for drugs, booze and prostitutes, which could explain the size of the expense account.

• 2019 April 3, Chris Cooke, “Streaming boom and emerging markets drive fourth year of growth for global recorded music industry”, in Complete Music Update‎^[4]:

  Don’t be thinking the record companies are getting all complacent and haemorrhaging all of that new cash on exorbitant executive bonuses, plush new offices and an endless supply of fruit and flowers though. Oh no. They are investing.