HOW was your summer?

I’ve been asked that question several times over the last couple of weeks.

Yes, the last couple of months have been fine for me.

But it’s not like I’ve been kicking back on my country estate in Provence.

I have been onto the estate several times…but only to go to Asda to replenish our stocks of Echo Falls Zinfandel rose.

Perhaps it is the weather that has given the impression that everyone has been away for the summer.

It is unusual that we probably went about eight weeks without any rain - my garden was like the Gobi Desert until the showers arrived in the last week or so - and things did feel different this summer.

I can’t remember a summer when you got up everyday and only viewed the weather forecast to find out how hot it was going to be rather than whether it might be cloudy and rainy.

As well as the grass and plants drying up, so did the calls and emails.

I think the weather gave the impression that we were all on holiday.

We had a weekend away with friends in Hinderwell near Runswick Bay on the Yorkshire coast in July and a week in Majorca in August (the photograph above is from inside Palma Cathedral), but during this perceived endless summer I didn’t play loads of golf or padel or even achieve my ambition of getting tanned ankles so I can hitch up my trousers and go sockless.

So if you see me in legwarmers, you’ll know why.

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ONE of the big things that happened over the summer was the solar eclipse on August 12.

The UK media embraced this once in a lifetime phenomenon with the gusto you would expect given it was the silly season.

I don’t know if you were like me, but after it had happened I was left thinking: ‘Was that it?’

OK, I didn’t have a pair of the special glasses to be able to view it directly and I couldn’t bring myself to fish out a colander to look at it that way either.

Helpful advice in the media suggested that one could stand with your back to the sun and hold a kitchen colander so it projected dozens of crescent-shaped images onto a white piece of paper or the ground.

But for me a kitchen colander should have only two uses.

To drain or rinse food or as a helmet when playing ‘army’ with friends.

I have an extra large colander, not because of my food portions, but just in case anyone invites me to play army.

So I didn’t view the solar eclipse directly, given the warnings about the damage it could cause to your eyes.

The next best thing was to view it on the television news.

The BBC had more people covering it around the globe than they would have dispatched if World War Three had just kicked off.

Rebecca Morelle, the BBC’s Science Editor, who was stationed near a beach in North Cornwall, was acting like an excited teenager, her voice rising to a high pitched screech as the eclipse reached its crescendo.

I’m sure it is a big thing in her world, but would we expect to get that reaction from the Beeb’s health, sports, political or economics editors?

And as for her colleague, Science Correspondent Pallab Ghosh…that lad took the biscuit.

He was in Burgos in Spain and told viewers: “Oh my goodness! I have literally got goosebumps. It is not just from the cold.”

I doubt it was, Spain was sweltering in temperatures in the high 30s and he was wearing a linen shirt.

Anyway, carry on Pallab: “This reminds us of what it is to be human, that we are a small planet in a vast cosmos and we are seeing the sun in its beautiful hidden form. Amazing…we are seeing things that our bodies tell us shouldn’t happen. It is a truly humbling experience…”

We might be a small planet in a vast cosmos Pallab, but that shouldn’t turn you into a space cadet sunshine.

Rather than marvelling at the occultation I had just witnessed I ended up shouting at the television.

I then went to find some Vaseline to help remove the colander that was stuck on my head.

:::

APPARENTLY the next total solar eclipse can be viewed in the UK on September 23, 2090.

Which is on or about the time they will finish the work on the front of Leeds Station.

I know I’m taking the mickey, but this neverending £46.1m “upgrade” to Leeds Station is beyond a joke.

Work started back in 2022 and was originally due to be finished last summer but completion of the project was delayed until last February and then again to this summer.

And now it has been delayed again with a phased opening predicted to start in October.

I reckon that £100,000 cost above £46m is what has had to be spent on the PR announcements explaining and attempting to justify all the delays.

It has taken so long that the bloke who was charting “progress” on the project, lawyer Paul Berwin, who began photographing it from his office window in the Platform building above the railway station, has since retired.

The key to this project lies in its title.

The Leeds Station Sustainable Travel Gateway.

Which means that no work is going on to improve train services and nothing is being done to tart up the 1970s main concourse of the station.

No, in the words of the brains trust behind it, this work “aims to create a safer, more accessible and more inviting space and help the station accommodate increasing demand for rail travel in the city”.

I could suggest how that could be done with a budget that is a fraction of 46 million nicker.

First provide smooth and easy access for cars and taxis to pick up and drop off passengers.

And secondly draft in the British Transport Police or pay for proper security people to prevent anti-social behaviour like drunken antics and balaclava-wearing scrotes riding their bikes through the concourse.

Simples.

Instead the current work on the entrance at Leeds City Station will provide us with a new flight of stairs, two new passenger lifts (21-person capacity in each) and some new cycle racks.

What is the betting that this will be the way to access the station taxi rank?

Imagine those lifts and that staircase when everyone piles off the evening LNER arrival from King’s Cross.

“Safer”, “more accessible” and “more inviting” are not the words I would use to describe the experience.

The reason given for the delays in the project are because the Victorian brick arches which the station is built on have needed “maintaining”.

In the meantime apparently work is ongoing by construction “partner” Balfour Beatty to install and test the passenger and cycle lifts before they are predicted to open towards the end of October.

I wish I’d bought shares in Balfour Beatty at the start of this project.

If you want to know why this scheme is such a shambles, you need look no further than who is in charge of delivering it.

It is “delivered by Leeds City Council on behalf of Network Rail, in partnership with the West Yorkshire Combined Authority”.

I can’t think of three more poorly run, badly led, pig ignorant organisations out there.

I’m sure that when this work is finally completed they all appear for an official opening photo shoot.

By which time rail passengers, commuters and motorists will have made alternative arrangements for their travel which doesn’t involve Leeds city centre.

They will have had the best part of five years to sort out those plans.

:::

I WAS sitting at a cafe table in a sunny square in the Majorcan capital Palma a couple of weeks ago enjoying a beer and people-watching in the still very warm evening sun.

Four people were sitting at the table next to ours and I noticed that I could only hear one voice speaking.

There was no conversation between the quartet, just a monologue from one chap who, it would be fair to say, was what my grandmother would have described as “a know-it-all”.

With a heavy Lancashire accent, he talked incessantly for the entire time we were sitting at the cafe table.

I zoned out of what he was droning on about until just before we got up to leave when he was reminiscing about his childhood in the 1970s.

He told his friends: “I used to ride around with no hands on my Chopper…”

I tried it once.

But I wet my plimsolls.

Have a great weekend.

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SOCIAL media and particularly LinkedIn in recent weeks, has been crowded with people posting photos of themselves with the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

And then when footballing great Kevin Keegan died last month, plenty of people popped up with photos alongside ‘King Kev’.

Having met neither of them, I couldn’t get in on the act.

Well now I can.

Farewell then Jimmy Cricket.

The Northern Irish comedian, famous for his wellies marked with an L and R on the front, battered black hat and catchphrase “And there’s more…” died this week aged 80.

I only saw Jimmy Cricket, whose real name was James Joseph Mulgrew, perform once and that was at the 60th birthday of his fellow Papal Knight, celebrated Yorkshire tax accountant Tim Parr, from the firm RSM.

The venue was the now closed Bradford Club, a place where the city’s merchants, entrepreneurs and business professionals met and did business for many decades.

It was September 2021 when the country was emerging from the latest set of Covid lockdown restrictions and Tim threw a dinner to celebrate his and wife Claire’s milestone birthdays.

Jimmy Cricket and his wife May, who he called ‘Mrs Cricket’, performed the after dinner entertainment with Jimmy telling stories and cracking gags while May punctuated the hour-long act with a few songs.

The only thing that confused me was that I thought I remembered that he wore his famous wellies, with L and R in marker pen on the front, on the wrong feet.

But at that event in Bradford he was wearing them on the right feet (you know what I mean).

I even researched photographs of his old performances and I can confirm that this was definitely an oversight on his part.

Jimmy Cricket was a friend and huge fan of Ken Dodd and I coincidentally also saw the tattifilarious comedy legend in Bradford a few years before the great man passed on.

In a tribute posted by Jimmy Cricket’s family on the comic’s website, they said: “He was our greatest champion and loved us all loudly. He also just loved people and he absolutely loved being a stand up comedian. What a life he lived.

“Forever our clown, he was cracking jokes to the wonderful NHS staff and to us all, right until the end. His courage, dignity and positivity through all he endured was inspirational.

“A force for joy, we are just all very sad that the world is a far less sillier place today.

“We were going to end by using his famous catchphrase and say, ‘There’s no More’.

“But Jimmy was a man of great faith and a Papal Knight of the Catholic Church. He believed that death is not the end and was looking forward to eternity, so really…And there’s more.”

During his comedy career of over 50 years Jimmy Cricket made plenty of people laugh and didn’t offend anyone, which is some achievement.

His humour was gentle.

“My new sat nav is amazing; yesterday I was passing a zoo and she said: ‘Bear left.’”

And there’s more…

“I’ve found a great way to cut down on my electricity bill… I only plug the electric clock in when I want to know the time.”

“I had a job once printing initials on tea towels… I really made a name for myself!”

“I’ve finally found a way to stop the birds pecking at the milk bottles… I’ve locked the gate so they can’t get up the drive.”

“Never buy air conditioning straight away… make sure there’s a cooling-off period.”

You can groan if you like, but if one of them raised a smile, then Jimmy would be happy.

Thanks for the memories Tim Parr.

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FROM Cricket…to cricket.

I had a cracking day at Yorkshire’s match against Durham at York last Friday and I barely saw two balls bowled.

That is because the people on my table in the hospitality marquee were such good company.

And also because I bumped into lots of other great people that were among the 850 corporate guests at the Metro Bank One Day Cup game at Clifton Park in York.

It was a cricket ground I had never been to before and the hospitality section took up a huge part of the ground.

The sun shined and the rose wine and conversation flowed.

After a quiet few weeks work-wise, it was nice to sit down and meet new, interesting people, learn what they do and tell them a bit about what I do (helping people tell stories through events, interviews, media training and crisis and reputation management is my pitch).

I was a guest of Caroline Pullich at insurance firm T L Dallas and it was great to see her colleagues James Bright and Sara Chapman and meet guests including hotel and property entrepreneur Simon Houlston.

Coincidentally, my wife worked for his father Simon many moons ago.

Also on the table were Handelsbanken manager David Brady who I met when I first started my business and opened an account with the Swedish bank.

He was there with his colleague Amy Bohanna from the bank’s Bradford office.

Among other guests I bumped into in the marquee were wealth manager Richard Brown who has recently started a new role with LGT Group, owned by the Lichtenstein royal family.

Jamie Wheldon of chartered surveying firm Pearce Wheldon Capital Allowances is one of those people who is always interested in those he meets and always thinking of how he can help you.

I can attest to this because on Monday morning he phoned me to say he was going to make an introduction for me to one of his contacts.

In the spirit of reciprocity I can tell you that Jamie, whose late brother Tim headed law firm Addleshaw Goddard in Yorkshire, is a thoroughly nice guy who works with businesses and investors in commercial property on capital allowances, a legitimate form of tax relief.

It was also good to see Nigel Adams, the former Conservative minister and MP for Selby and Ainsty who has returned to his entrepreneurial roots and is involved in businesses in the nuclear and clean energy sectors.

Nigel had an interesting take on the Government’s ambition to widen the spending powers of regional mayors.

He told me that any regional mayor who isn’t very popular must be doing something badly wrong as their primary role is to spend money in their regions rather than levy taxes.

I hadn’t thought about it like that, but I’ll observe our mayors’ popularity ratings a bit closer in future.

Although I hope that won’t involve listening to any of their speeches.

:::

AN attempt by the animal rights charity Peta to champion the cause of veganism has ended in disappointment this week.

Peta had been keen to put forward an alternative proposal for the World Black Pudding Throwing Championships which takes place annually in Ramsbottom, near Bury.

Peta had offered to replace the black puddings with vegan alternatives but, as reported by the Manchester Evening News, event organisers have opted not to change their current practices, which do actually include the option of a ‘competition weight’ vegan black pudding for anyone wanting one.

Proud Yorkshire folk everywhere will probably not bat an eye lid at this little kerfuffle taking place on t’other side of t’Pennines.

But if I told you that the World Black Pudding Throwing Championships involves competitors throwing blood sausages at stacks of Yorkshire puddings on a plinth 20 feet in the air with the winner being the person who knocks the most off, then I’m sure you’d be positively apoplectic.

:::

THE Merrie England cafe chain shut down last month after 60 years in business.

It has become the latest victim in the hospitality sector of that perfect storm of rising costs - particularly energy - increasing business rates and the surging cost of employing staff.

I thought that Merrie England were a national chain of coffee shops because I’m sure I remember being taken to one in a shopping centre in Derby by my grandmother when I was a child.

But, according to the BBC the Huddersfield-based cafe business had seven cafes in locations including Huddersfield, Halifax and Brighouse and, perhaps surprisingly, a ‘drive thru’ in Oakes in Huddersfield.

Founded in 1966 by husband and wife Anita and Keith Hanselman, Merrie England built a loyal following among locals for its old fashioned atmosphere and hearty British fare including hot beef sandwiches, toasted teacakes, egg custard tarts and apple pie.

The coffee shop’s staff were even celebrated in a poem written by Huddersfield-born poet laureate Simon Armitage.

So if I didn’t really visit a Merrie England when I was a kid, what do I know about it then?

Well, when I was business editor of the Yorkshire Post, I went to Huddersfield to interview the chief executive of women’s clothing retailer Bonmarche.

The “value retailer” was where ladies of a certain age used to buy their frocks and other bits and pieces of clothing.

CEO Steve Bullas displayed a zeal and passion for his role and an instinctive knowledge of his customer base that I had also seen in supermarket king Sir Ken Morrison.

We looked around the headquarters in Huddersfield and then Steve, me and his finance director and marketing guy jumped in a car and headed to Wakefield where he was keen to show me the latest Bonmarche store.

During the journey Steve explained to me who the chain’s core customers were, what they wanted, how much they spent and what their weekly shopping habits were - not just at Bonmarche but the other places they would visit on the high street.

After touring the Wakefield shop - where Steve invited me to inspect a range of flowery and polka dot dresses, vest tops and flared skirts - we jumped back in the car.

As we were making our way out of Wakefield, Steve exclaimed: “Stop the car!”

I wondered if he had seen a robbery or an accident taking place.

But no.

He pointed across the street and shrieked: “There they are!”

I gazed across the road where I could see three elderly ladies standing at a bus stop outside a coffee shop holding shopping bags.

“That’s what I was telling you about! That’s my ladies! Look, they have Bonmarche bags, they will have been into town on the bus, gone shopping and then met up for a coffee in Merrie England and now they are catching the bus home!” he said triumphantly.

I bet you think he then took me into Merrie England for a cuppa and an almond slice.

No, we went for lunch to the celebrated Three Acres Inn in Shelley near Huddersfield.

In the same way he knew his own shoppers, he must have been briefed on me too.

Have a great weekend.

This blog is taking a little break for a couple of weeks. Enjoy the rest of the summer and I’ll be back soon.

Whether you like it or not.

Cheerio.

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THE Eagle has landed.

The headlines were pretty predictable when London’s latest luxury hotel, the Rosewood Chancery in the former American Embassy building, opened a rooftop bar which takes its name from the gilded eagle sculpture that perches atop the edifice.

The Eagle Bar is inspired by New York’s Upper East Side but boasts views of the London skyline from the seventh floor of the former embassy which was built in 1960.

I have always felt that this massive modernist architecture inspired building which occupies the whole of the west side of Grosvenor Square sits rather uncomfortably amongst the principally Georgian and Palladian buildings that surround it.

Despite this the building is grade II listed which meant that when the United States decided to build a brand new and much larger embassy building down the River Thames at Nine Elms, the Eagle sculpture had to stay.

The huge 35-foot wingspan golden eagle was created by artist Theodore Roszak and made from recycled B-52 bomber metal.

When I was in London a few weeks ago I happened to be walking across Grosvenor Square after a meeting nearby.

I had heard about the opening of the Chancery Rosewood and stopped on the pavement outside to gaze up at the building.

A doorman from the hotel, wearing a blazer, waistcoat and snappy Panama hat, greeted me and invited me to look around the hotel.

I was impressed with the sympathetic but striking renovation of the building but a glance at the gifts on sale in the lobby (specially designed Chancery Rosewood pyjamas priced at £1,000) I swiftly decided that this hotel would probably not become my home from home when in the capital.

However as I descended the steps at the front of the building the doorman tipped his hat, told me a little of the history of the building and suggested that I return to enjoy the views and the drinks at the Eagle Bar on the rooftop.

What a salesman.

Mind you, it is some product to sell.

So when my wife and I went to London last weekend I booked a table for pre-dinner drinks at the Eagle Bar.

We were warmly welcomed and shown to an outdoor table on the terrace close to the eagle sculpture and with views that took in a vista which including the BT tower, Canary Wharf, the ‘Walkie-Talkie’ building, The Shard and the London Eye.

You are only on the seventh floor but Mayfair’s lack of tall buildings provides a stunning outlook.

There is a minimum spend of £100 per couple for those visiting the bar.

But a glance at the American-inspired drinks and food menu gave me great confidence that we wouldn’t be rolling out of there drunk by the time we had reached that target.

I asked our waiter for a suggestion of what type of martini to have and he suggested a vodka martini made with fino sherry and orange bitters, inspired by a cocktail called Flame of Love made for the singer Dean Martin.

Given I’m a fan of martinis and Dino, I was right on board for that one.

And only 27 quid a pop as well!

It wasn’t just the drinks and the views that attracted me to the Chancery Rosewood.

The building holds good memories for me.

I once visited it to interview the then US Ambassador to the Court of St James’s, Philip Lader.

I was the London Editor of the Western Mail and was given an audience with the diplomat ahead of a big American inward investment project in Wales.

It must have been 1998 and Lader greeted me with a warm smile, a stocky man with steel grey hair and the traditional Ivy League outfit of navy suit, blue button down shirt and red striped tie.

Unlike in the UK (Peter Mandelson notwithstanding), US ambassadors are political appointments made by an incoming president.

Lader, who was president of Sea Pines Company which developed property communities in South Carolina, including Hilton Head Island, was a friend of the then president Bill Clinton.

Those who have met Bill Clinton say he has charisma that is off the scale and Lader was similar.

He was everything an ambassador should be: articulate, engaging, charming and made me feel like I was the only person in the world he wanted to speak to.

Looking at Lader’s career after he stepped down as a diplomat, he hasn’t done too badly.

He has sat on the boards of Lloyd’s of London, Marathon Oil, AMC Entertainment, the British Museum, the American Red Cross, the Smithsonian Museum and St Paul’s Cathedral Foundation.

In the 1980s he was executive vice president of Sir James Goldsmith’s US holdings which included America’s then-largest private landholdings as well as forestry and oil and gas holdings.

Even now, aged 80, he is chairman of the global advertising and communications group WPP and a senior adviser to Morgan Stanley.

I’ve just connected with him on LinkedIn, but I doubt our meeting is etched into his memory as clearly as it is into mine.

While Philip Lader is wrestling with the global economic outlook for WPP and Morgan Stanley, I’m wondering how I’m going to settle the credit card bill for a couple of Dean Martin martinis.

Cheers!

:::

DID you hear the story about the Ugandan boxer in the Commonwealth Games who has been disqualified for headbutting his opponent?

You didn’t? Well it must have been only me then.

Aziz Abdul was punished after lifting his head into the chin of English opponent Damar Thomas in a super-heavyweight bout at the games which are currently taking place in Glasgow.

It turns out that Abdul is the grandson of the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

Before the Commonwealth Games the boxer, who never met his grandfather, told the BBC he wanted to become the new ‘King of Scotland’, referring to Amin declaring himself that back in 1976.

Indeed, the 2006 Hollywood film about Amin starring Forest Whitaker and James McAvoy was called The Last King of Scotland.

Amin, a former soldier who gained power through a coup in 1971, was nicknamed The Butcher of Uganda and presided over a brutal regime in which an estimated half a million people were killed.

I’d say Damar Thomas got away lightly with a headbutt to the chin given the history of Abdul’s antecedent.

:::

I’M currently basking in the warm reputational sunshine that comes hand-in-hand with great sporting success and glory.

According to LinkedIn I was a member of a team that won the trophy at a charity golf day for property professionals at Chislehurst Golf Club last week.

I’d love to recount my triumph over 18 holes in the - I’d advise that you don’t read the next two words too quickly - Kent countryside, but sadly it wasn’t me.

I was mentioned by the team captain in a victorious post on LinkedIn, but it must be another David Parkin who played in that golf match.

My most recent outing on a golf course was taking part in the York Knights rugby league club golf day at Rudding Park Golf Course near Harrogate.

My team, led by club director Richard Larking and including popular former Welcome to Yorkshire director Peter Dodd, scored a not too shabby 82 points but the winning score was 100 points, which I’m told takes some doing.

But it is all about taking part and the event was well organised and marshalled by Warwick Andrews, who has recently crossed codes by moving from Leeds Tykes rugby union club to York Knights.

The fourth member of our team was Gary Rowley, the former chief executive of card maker UK Greetings.

Gary, who spent his entire 44-year career with the company, is now enjoying plenty of golf and travel during his well earned retirement.

The last time I played golf with Gary I mentioned I had organised and hosted some events for the broadcaster Sky and Gary asked me if I knew a friend of his called Trevor East who used to be a senior executive at the company.

My jaw dropped.

Trevor East is a former colleague of both my parents at the Midlands news agency Raymonds.

He was a trainee journalist at the Derby firm before going on to a glittering career in broadcasting which included presenting ATV’s anarchic Saturday morning kids show Tiswas.

Behind the camera, he was ITV’s head of football broadcasting before moving to Sky where he was an integral part of the team that built Sky’s dominance of live top-flight football.

As head of acquisitions at Sky Sports, Trevor would negotiate the deals to acquire Premier League football rights and major world championship boxing matches.

He went on to work for the Irish sports broadcaster Setanta and in recent years was a director of Plymouth Argyle Football Club.

According to Gary, Trevor still gets invites to big football and boxing matches from his many sports contacts.

Not bad for a lad from Derby.

If I had actually been part of that winning golf team in Chislehurst, they might even have said that about me.

Have a great weekend.

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I DIDN’T think I would enjoy the World Cup as much as I did.

There were some great matches, other than the final.

I spent the 120 minutes of that match just hoping that the team attempting to play football would win.

And how, when a match kicked off at 8pm, did I end up going to bed at gone midnight?

Well I suppose that is because of hydration breaks, a bizarre half-time show and then the trophy presentation.

Put aside petulance, politics and poor sportsmanship, I’ll tell you what the biggest positive was from this World Cup.

Seeing FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s outfit of bright white trainers with a navy suit and tie was probably enough to convince most middle-aged men that this is not a stylish look.

:::

IT seems plenty of people share my view that electric bikes being ridden around pedestrianised areas of cities are dangerous.

Martin Jenkins, the former head of Deloitte in Yorkshire who has just stepped down to take up a portfolio career after a successful eight years at vehicle leasing group Zenith as commercial and strategy director, said: “The more powerful e-bikes should have reg plates like motorbikes and those using them should have to register for a licence to ride them so anti-social riding can be dealt with.”

Former High Sheriff of West Yorkshire, Richard Jackson recounted a recent close encounter: “ “Interesting you should talk about ebikes. On a small road near my home, I was doing some low speed when I was overtaken by an ebike doing 50 mph. No number plates, no crash helmet and presumably no insurance!

“He came to a standstill when a car was coming in the opposite direction, I challenged him but he was not interested at all. I subsequently wrote to the Ministry of Transport saying they ought to deal with this matter but have not had the courtesy of a reply and suspect they are doing nothing about it.”

Reader Tom Bottomley, a successful business consultant, cautions about confusing e-bikes with electric motorbikes.

I suppose I was more focused on the balaclava-wearing scrotes riding the bikes rather than the bikes themselves.

“You’ve touched on an issue that worries me. We need to be careful with the terminology here, otherwise we’re going to end up with another layer of unnecessary regulation, with unintended consequences, that impacts the wrong people! It’s not you, I’ve already tried to pick this up with the BBC and others.

“The scrote you pictured - one of whom overtook me in Horsforth today, looking exactly like that picture and pulling a wheelie! - is riding an electric motorbike not an ebike (short for e-bicycle).

“There is an important distinction, which really matters to people who ride bicycles (e or otherwise) and who do not deserve to be regulated off the road by the confusion:

• Electric motorbike: Has propulsion from the electric battery without pedalling (and may not have pedals). It typically has a twist throttle and can travel very fast without any physical effort from the operator. This is a motorbike, in the same way that an electric car is a car. It should therefore be taxed, registered and insured. The rider should also wear a helmet (not a balaclava or woolly hat) and have lights and registration plates … and they should be arrested on sight if seen breaching these laws. Unfortunately they are getting away with it because of soft, or under-resourced, policing. Many are nicking phones or handbags and can’t be identified on CCTV because of the balaclavas … and they are a dangerous scourge on our streets and in our parks. The police don’t chase them because they either disappear into the darkness off-road or because of the risk that someone gets hurt.

• Ebikes (e-bikes or electric bicycles): Power-assisted cycling. Twist throttle is banned by law and there’s a maximum speed of assistance is 25 km/h (c 15 mph) … and they cannot move unless someone is pedalling. I have one because my knees are ‘shot’ and I need a little help getting up the hills. It’s cycling with a human power input of 100 Watts instead of 200 Watts.

“Unfortunately many people are referring to the former as e-bikes. The potential consequence is that there will be regulation which affects e-bikes…and will have absolutely zero impact on those who are already in breach of the existing laws but are not being arrested. They will just carry on as they are - with the same lack of challenge.

“Perhaps you can help with some awareness…the scrotes are winning (and growing in numbers) by some margin!”

I don’t think this blog has ever been as informative. Perhaps I could get a public service grant from the Government.

:::

THE phrase “an old head on young shoulders” is not one I have used for some time.

But it certainly applies to Lewis Hepworth, who I met for lunch this week.

Lewis recently moved from Swedish bank Handelsbanken to become the Yorkshire representative for Together, the residential and commercial property lender.

The Cheshire-based business is still run by its 76-year-old founder Henry Moser.

I met Lewis years ago before he had even started work.

As a callow youth he was thrown into the bear pit that was a lunch that used to take place every Christmas at The Foundry restaurant in Leeds.

Leeds United fans from the city’s business community, who called themselves ‘LS1 Whites’ gathered for lunch on a long table in the restaurant while another table would be filled with fans of other football clubs.

They were known as the ‘ABLs’ - Anyone But Leeds.

I joined the ABL table a couple of times and enjoyed the banter, the chanting and the songs over a raucous lunch.

Lewis, as a young lad, attended the lunch with his father Chris and even stood up and sang a football song, which is more than I did.

Quite frankly if you can survive that kind of ordeal then nothing in life is going to prove much of a challenge in comparison.

I met Lewis again earlier this year when Dave Jones invited me to his box at Leeds Arena for a performance by the band James.

There were lots of old friends of Dave’s from his time at Yorkshire Bank such as Chris Hepworth and Nigel Scarth and Lewis has clearly grown up with some wise, experienced mentors around him.

He is forging himself a successful career in finance, although it will take decades of practice for him to get to the point where, like Dave Jones, he can balance that with a hectic social life of gigs and nights out.

:::

I POPPED into the retirement party for Lee Collinson last night.

Friends, colleagues and contacts gathered at Aspire in Leeds to celebrate Lee’s successful 37-year career with Barclays where he was the bank’s national head of manufacturing, transport and logistics.

Lee is somebody I have known since I arrived at the Yorkshire Post in 2000 and I’ve followed his career with interest.

Unlike some senior executives, he always has time for a chat, tells a good story and has a knowledge of subjects beyond his work brief.

Unfortunately I was a bit late arriving so missed the reunion of two of his former Barclays colleagues, Caroline Pullich and Karen Swainston, who I once dubbed the ‘Cagney and Lacey’ of regional banking.

For younger readers, Cagney and Lacey was a 1980s US TV show about a pair of female detectives in New York.

Their often exasperated but ever supportive boss was a character called Lieutenant Samuels.

I’m too polite to suggest that Lee played that role with Caroline and Karen.

Caroline is now head of private clients at national insurance business T L Dallas while Karen retired from Barclays last year after a remarkable 50 years with the bank.

Meanwhile Lee now steps into retirement.

After 37 years of work, I asked him what he is looking forward to most.

Exotic holidays and a round-the-world cruise, perhaps?

No, he is excited about joining the board of Scunthorpe United Football Club.

Up the Iron.

As they say in Scunthorpe and the wider environs of North Lincolnshire.

Have a great weekend.

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THAT’S me not so much singing as speaking for my supper last week.

I was asked to chair a private dinner by Jim Gribbon of Zenzero, a national data, AI and cyber consultancy.

The dinner was held in the private dining room of rooftop restaurant Crowded House in Leeds with a selection of wines provided by historic wine merchant Corney & Barrow.

Welcoming guests, who numbered eminent lawyers and successful entrepreneurs, I said that the dinner would include excellent food, fine wine and a high level discussion about AI and how it affects the legal sector and I was the right man for the job as I had expertise in two of those subjects.

And when it came to AI I used AI to come up with the questions to ask guests about AI.

I’m nothing if not resourceful.

:::

FAREWELL then Ken Bates, a man I have some fond memories of.

Which is surprising given he threatened to sue me, swore at me and said he’d get me the sack if I wrote anything he disagreed with.

The former Chelsea Football Club and Leeds United chairman died last week at the age of 94 at his home in Monaco.

Bates was one of the most outspoken and controversial figures operating in a sport that doesn’t attract a lot of wallflowers.

Many loved him and an equal amount appeared to loathe him during his decades as a central figure in English football.

Despite my verbal rough and tumble relationship with the man dubbed ‘Old Greybeard’, I found him a fascinating and entertaining character, even if he wasn’t particularly likeable.

Bates actually revelled in being obstreperous, rude and divisive.

His wife Susannah, who met him when she was a journalist who went to interview him, once told me that he was the kindest, gentlest individual.

All I can say is that he hid it well.

I first met Ken Bates after he saw me interviewed on Sky Sports News about Leeds United’s fall into administration.

Sports journalists whose only usual dealings with football finances stretched to transfer fees and weekly wages, were struggling to get to grips with what the insolvency process might mean for the football club.

As Business Editor of the Yorkshire Post, the TV channel asked me about the consequences of administration for the football club.

I did my best to explain what it all meant and after the piece was broadcast I received a telephone call from Martin Pickles, who owned The Flying Pizza restaurant in Leeds.

He said Ken Bates had seen me on Sky Sports and he thought I knew what I was talking about and wanted to meet me for lunch.

A lunch date was arranged at The Flying Pizza and by the time it arrived I had written a column about a speech I had seen Bates deliver to members of the Leeds creative and media community at an event at Elland Road.

I said it had been a good speech but delivered with the wrong content at the wrong time to the wrong audience.

As I entered The Flying Pizza I was shown to the best table in the front window to be greeted by Ken Bates, his wife Susannah and Jayne McGuinness, his former personal assistant at Chelsea who he promoted to deputy chair at Leeds United.

I shook their hands and sat down where I noticed they were well on their way through a bottle of champagne.

Bates didn’t offer me a drink, he took a photocopy of my newspaper column about him out of the inside pocket of his jacket and I noticed certain passages were marked with a highlighter pen.

Bates fixed me with a glare while saying: “Why did you say this was the wrong speech at the wrong time to the wrong audience?”

I attempted to justify my comments but he didn’t seem satisfied.

So I said to him: “I thought this was a friendly lunch to get to know each other?”

He replied: “It will be, but first I want you to answer my questions about this column and I should remind you that I have won £400,000 in libel damages from journalists and I’m currently considering whether you should be my next victim.”

I didn’t know at the time but that was Bates’ modus operandi: get people on the back foot, make them uncomfortable and they will be more compliant.

He calmed down quite quickly, I was poured a glass of champagne followed by another one before one of the waiters came over to take our lunch order.

After taking the order, he said, very politely: “Mr Bates, I just wanted to tell you that me and some of the other staff here have clubbed together to put a £100 bet on Leeds United to win the title this season.”

Ken Bates leaned back in his seat and said: “Well you know what they say son? A fool and his money are soon parted. Now f*** off and get the chips.”

That was Ken Bates.

He was even more shocking in what he said later in the meal, but that is only a story I can tell you privately over a drink sometime.

I did enough at that lunch for Bates to keep in touch with me and I was later invited to a press conference followed by a lunch in the private dining room at the Malmaison Hotel in Leeds when Bates successfully bought the club out of administration in 2007.

The journalists there were all London-based national newspaper sports reporters who knew Ken Bates well.

Harry Harris from the Daily Mirror, Mark Irwin from The Sun and Steve Curry from the Daily Mail who I discovered co-owned a wine bar in London with Bates where Curry’s wife was the manager.

That probably tested the boundaries of journalistic independence.

I was there with the Yorkshire Post’s then Leeds United correspondent Richard Sutcliffe who now covers upwardly mobile Hollywood-owned Wrexham for The Athletic.

Bates was asked several questions I would deem ‘soft’ by his pals from the national press and I remember asking a question about the finances of his deal to buy the business out of administration.

He gave me an answer which I thought was a lot of flannel so I dug a little further with my next question which Bates really didn’t like so he suggested I didn’t know what I was talking about and took a question from someone else.

On reflection, he was operating then like Donald Trump does now.

There was a boozy lunch after the press conference which I enjoyed because between them, Bates and the London press pack had some great stories to tell.

I was later invited to two of Ken Bates’ birthday parties in the banqueting suite at Elland Road.

There were fascinating people there and the food was Bates’ favourite dishes including beef wellington washed down with fine wines.

At one of them I sat next to a big-time football agent and at another I remember the then Leeds United manager Simon Grayson got up to give a very funny tongue-in-cheek speech to congratulate the chairman on his birthday.

He didn’t get the sack the following day so Bates must have liked what he said.

That was the last time I saw Ken Bates in person.

However I got a couple of calls from him from his Monaco penthouse.

He had phoned me by mistake when he was trying to get hold of multi-millionaire logistics magnate and Leeds United fan Steve Parkin.

:::

TALKING of Leeds United, I was at a UK Israel Business breakfast event last week where the guest speaker was Peter McCormick, executive vice-chairman of the Premier League club.

Interviewed by Edward Ziff of Town Centre Securities, Peter is a very entertaining speaker with a host of tales about his career as a solicitor and in major roles in football administration including chairman of the Premier League and the Football Association.

I had never heard Peter talk about his early career in the law which was as a trainee at Levi Solicitors in Leeds under the late legal giant Jack Levi.

Memories include one of the partners getting so frustrated with a photocopier which wouldn’t produce what he wanted so he pushed it out of a first floor office window where it landed in the middle of St Paul’s Street, shocking a few passers-by.

:::

THE Great Yorkshire Show is one of the highlights of the summer calendar in the county.

And when the sun shines and the traffic control measures work well, there are few other places you would want to be on a July day.

I was there as a guest of Caroline Pullich of insurance firm T L Dallas and we enjoyed breakfast in the hospitality lounge served by veteran maitre d’ Noel Dobbin.

Rudding Park Hotel, Pavilions of Harrogate and the Royal Armouries, Noel is a familiar figure at events in Yorkshire, keeping things running smoothly thanks to bags of experience, a calm manner and a quick wit.

When Caroline asked him if royalty were expected to visit the Great Yorkshire Show this year, Noel winked, pointed at me and said: “Only him.”

Well I’m taking it as a compliment.

:::

WHAT was definitely a compliment was being bought a drink by a grateful reader of this blog.

You see, I told you I would eventually find one.

Having been invited to spend the weekend in a friend’s house near Runswick Bay on the North Yorkshire coast, we indulged in wholesome, healthy activities such as a game of rounders and playing frisbee on the beach.

After walking back along the clifftop we had worked up an appetite and a table had been booked at a picturesque restaurant called The Waterside, which sits on the River Esk in the village of Ruswarp near Whitby.

The evening sun was still blazing as we settled into our seats at an outdoor table.

I noticed a few figures at the bar who looked familiar.

On closer inspection I saw one was financial services entrepreneur Dominic Scoffield.

I went over to say hello and Dominic said he was there with a group of friends who were celebrating a mutual friend’s birthday.

There were plenty of familiar faces including Russell Manning of estate agency group Manning Stainton and menswear veteran Simon Berwin whose family business was the suit manufacturer Berwin & Berwin and Simon is now an international consultant to clothing makers and retailers.

A chap at the bar approached me and said: “You don’t know me but I really enjoy reading your blog every week and I would like to buy you and your wife a drink.”

He introduced himself as Richard Strauss who is the development director of an interesting recruitment organisation called Offploy which finds jobs for socially excluded individuals such as former prisoners.

I said there was no need for him to do that but he insisted saying: “I get so much from you so I would like to do something for you.”

I asked him what he was drinking and he said a negroni which happens to be a favourite drink of my wife and I.

So I was delighted to accept his generous offer.

If he had offered me a small glass of warm Merlot I might have been less eager.

After rounders and frisbee, a negroni really hit the spot and normal service was resumed for me on a Saturday.

Have a great weekend.

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THERE are definitely fewer big characters to be found in business these days.

The Yorkshire business world is feeling a lot emptier following the sudden death of Chris Silverwood last week.

To describe Chris as “larger than life” would get nowhere near doing him justice.

And I couldn’t give him a single job title.

He was well known and well liked as a corporate financier, dealmaker, funder, introducer, the kind of bloke who brought people together and from that anything was possible - friendships, partnerships, the creation of new enterprises and the expansion of existing ones.

But the role he was most proud of was as a dad to five children, two daughters from his first marriage and three boys, all aged under six, with wife Louise.

He died after suffering a heart attack when he was taking his sons to the dentist and in a poignant post on LinkedIn this week, Louise included a photograph of Chris with their boys.

If people didn’t know Chris personally, they may well have been familiar with his commentary on LinkedIn.

This social media platform for business people has become somewhat vanilla in terms of opinion.

By scrolling through it I can reach my daily pain and boredom thresholds very quickly viewing anodyne posts by users keen to share their “learnings” from all manner of mundane activities such as their cat playing with a ball of wool.

And then there’s the cacophony of “humble brags” - posting something that at first glance appears modest but the purpose of which is to actually boast about an achievement.

Chris Silverwood never did that.

He told it like it was and wasn’t afraid to have a pop at sectors, firms or individuals who he thought deserved criticism.

He did it with insight, he did it with humour and his comments invariably hit the bullseye.

There was almost always a big response, probably because he’d been bold enough to say what a lot of people were thinking but were too nervous to say.

You could fill a book with stories about Chris, except nobody would believe that just one man could be at the centre of them all.

He had settled into a quieter family life in North Yorkshire in recent years but I’m sure his passing brought back many memories of his time as a swashbuckling financier who could often be found belting out songs in the OK Karaoke bar that he launched with Garry Wilson of private equity house Endless.

His exploits earned him the nickname ‘The Wolf of Greek Street’ and he was proud to live up to that monicker.

It was a neat combination of the title of Martin Scorsese’s film about a flamboyant New York stockbroker and Chris’s’ stomping ground in Leeds, the bar-lined Greek Street.

A friend of his even mocked up a spoof film poster with Chris’s face on it.

And he lived up to it too.

He once threw a Christmas party in All Bar One on Millennium Square.

As I approached the entrance to the bar a dwarf wearing a yellow and black boiler suit and large crash helmet welcomed me at the door with a flourish.

It was Chris’s nod to the scene in The Wolf of Wall Street where Leonard DiCaprio and his drunken and drug-fuelled colleagues take part in a dwarf tossing contest.

Chris handed me a drink and I did admit my surprise at what I had just witnessed.

He leaned towards me conspiratorially and said: “You don’t know how hard it is to find a dwarf at this time of year…they’re all in panto.”

There were loads of business people at that do. One who I chatted to was Martin Penny, who made a fortune out of the hair straighteners business GHD.

Martin took his own life in 2018 and I know that profoundly affected Chris.

He was very aware of those he thought might be struggling with mental health and other challenges in life and I know he was a supportive friend because people have told me.

Sadly not all of those who Chris supported are here today to talk about it.

Chris trained as an accountant at what was Coopers & Lybrand and went on to work at the finance business Five Arrows, part of the historic merchant bank Rothschild & Co.

Along the way he ran an events business and one of my early dealings with him when I was at the Yorkshire Post was when he was involved in an early attempt to build an arena in Leeds.

He teamed up with businessman Patrick Nally - widely recognised as the ‘founding father’ of modern sports marketing - to put forward proposals for an arena at what was then called Clarence Dock in the city.

Their plans never came to pass but I know Chris registered the domain name of Leeds arena which was a clever move.

Chris was certainly charismatic and had a real skill at bringing good people together and, from that very simple but not easy to achieve premise, interesting things would happen.

He once invited me to a lunch on a Friday in the private dining room of Hotel du Vin in Harrogate.

I looked around the table and it was a who’s who of some of the most successful entrepreneurs in Yorkshire and beyond.

My first thought was: ‘If we all have to introduce ourselves, what the hell is my reason for being here?’

A few years ago I was asked to be involved in a programme launched by Leeds-based funding and advisory business Fresh Thinking Capital which was created to help develop and support the present and future leaders in the city’s professional services market.

Sponsored and supported by a host of blue chip professional services firms, the events, which I compered, were more than networking opportunities - bringing inspiring and experienced speakers to an audience of ambitious young professionals.

Inspiring speakers ranged from rugby league player Jamie Jones-Buchanan to mountaineer Dave Bunting.

But we also put on panel discussions where people from the business community came along to share their knowledge with the group.

Chris Silverwood was on a panel and I clearly remember him, perched on a bar stool, pint in hand, explaining the art of building relationships and networking in business.

I know many of those young people really valued what he said and I’m sure Chris’s networking tips are being put into practice by them all.

I told the audience that the only reason I was involved in the event was thanks to networking and business relationships.

Chris put on a drinks event for clients and contacts in Harrogate which was one of the first business events after the socialising restrictions imposed during the Covid pandemic.

At that event I chatted to Andrew Walls from Fresh Thinking Capital who said he and his co-founder Mel Hird had an event-based idea and would I be interested in discussing it with them.

So I have Chris to thank for that.

I’m sure there are many, many people who have plenty to thank him for.

He was that kind of guy.

:::

I HAD a strange experience last Friday.

Well stranger than my usual strange experiences.

I’d not got a lunch in the diary and took the car in for a service before getting the bus into Leeds and spending the day working in the office.

It was exhausting.

Anyway, when I emerged from the office in the afternoon I thought the city centre had been taken over by aliens.

Or I was on the set of a 1950s sci-fi movie.

You see everywhere I looked there were young people wearing black suits, white shirts and red ties.

Not only that, but most of them were wearing sunglasses and bald caps.

I wandered through the city centre wondering what was going on.

And it suddenly dawned on me that American rapper Pitbull was appearing in concert at Roundhay Park in front of tens of thousands of people that evening.

Thanks to social media, it’s become popular to attend a Pitbull show dressed as the star - in sunglasses, suit and a bald cap.

Now that’s a trend I could really get into.

“Hotter than Miami, I feel the heat. Oh, it’s international love.”

As Pitbull and I often say.

Have a great weekend.

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IF there is a more lively and popular event in the Yorkshire business calendar than Crypt Factor, I’d like to be invited.

The annual charity singing competition for the region’s property community attracts almost 1,000 people to Elland Road in Leeds to cheer on 10 acts who take to the stage to sing their hearts out.

Not surprisingly, with a name like Crypt Factor, the event is based on the popular TV talent show X Factor and raises money for the homeless charity St George’s Crypt and Yorkshire Property Charitable Trust.

This year’s event raised a record £114,00 for charity and Crypt Factor has now raised more than £1.2m for good causes since it started in 2007.

It is a really slickly put together show too with great staging, video, sound, lighting and special effects delivered by Sterling Event Group and the acts, who are all professionals from the Yorkshire Property Community, delivering performances that are full of energy and engage the audience even if, in one or two rare cases, their vocal talents aren’t that great.

This year’s Crypt Factor was won by Richard ‘Bammo’ Bamford of CBRE, who performed Dakota by Stereophonics, one of 16 singers from 10 acts who took to the stage to perform chart-topping hits in the Centenary Pavilion at Elland Road on what was for the second year in a row, the hottest night of the year - in both temperatures and excitement levels.

After all the acts had performed, the judging panel and main sponsors, comprising Craig Burrow from Town Centre Securities, Dawn Allen from Pinsent Masons and Garry Howes from GV&Co, who were also joined by TV actor and singer, Will Mellor, selected four finalists before the audience chose the overall winner.

You might remember Will Mellor as the former Hollyoaks actor who appeared in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps and more recently played sub-postmaster Lee Castleton in the powerful ITV drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office.

Unlike some celebs I’ve seen at charity events, Will had energy, humour and was brilliantly supportive of all the acts.

Which allowed room for Craig Burrow to assume his Simon Cowell role as the toughest judge to please on the panel.

It created great pantomime with friends and supporters of acts Craig didn’t lavish with praise booing him loudly.

Dawn ‘Titanium’ Allen is the calming influence in the middle of her fellow judges while I was sad to be told by Garry Howes that it was his last year as a judge of the competition.

I think Garry has finally forgiven me for previously comparing him to a chart-topping singing act.

With his swept back hair and prominent, gleaming white teeth, he does remind me of one of the Bee Gees.

I did tell him that I was only jealous and I am saving up for a trip to Turkey for several cosmetic enhancements.

What do you mean I’ll be saving for a long time?

The Crypt Factor celebrated Garry’s final show as a judge by playing a video of his highlights from the event over the last decade.

If nothing else, it did illustrate why his judging nickname is ‘Smashed It’ as that seemed to be his response to most acts he mentored.

The event was compered by Ben Hall from NorthCap and Corinne Travis from Network Space who did a great job keeping the evening moving and the audience under control even when they were being served a curry meal during the performances.

I was invited by Ann Seddon and Jordan Hall of Sterling Event Group who we have worked with for years on our events and always deliver great service and quality.

Also on our table was Lisa Turton from Leeds first direct bank arena who brought along hand held branded fans that we all were grateful for on a very warm evening.

It was nice to see photographer Simon Dewhurst - he took the cracking images I’ve used here - and Steve Wright of Candid PR who supports the event alongside Emma Scattergood of Anderson Advertising & Property Marketing.

Crypt Factor committee member, Dawn Allen, from Pinsent Masons, said: “Yet again this was a huge night that will be remembered for all the right reasons. Will Mellor was a great addition to the judging panel and all the singers were fantastic. They all performed to an exceptional standard, in front of a huge and very supportive audience, and Richard was a very deserving winner.

“Most importantly, thanks to the brilliant support and generosity of the region’s property industry, along with so many other people and companies that work alongside it, we’ve raised an amazing amount of money that will make a huge difference and change the lives of people in Yorkshire.

“The planning has already started for Crypt Factor 2027 and we’re now looking for singers to take part. It’s a unique opportunity to perform in front of an incredibly supportive audience with a professional sound and lighting team, as well as lots of help and support from people who have all performed previously.”

Richard said: “Singing at Crypt Factor in front of so many people was unbelievable and I still can’t believe I won. It’s a genuine one-off experience and everyone there is urging you to do well. For anyone thinking about singing next year, my advice is to go for it!”

My favourite act were The Kitchen Crooners, Emma Dixon-Child and Michelle Bulloch of Balmorality Business Connections who donned 1980s wigs and shiny frocks to perform I Know Him So Well which was a hit for Elaine Paige and Barbara Dixon.

Although Sammy Smickersgill (great name) of JPG, performing Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus went full-on hillbilly with thick moustache and mullet hairdo.

Whether he adopted the look for the performance or he always walks around like that, I’m not sure about given that the ‘tache and mullet look is increasingly fashionable among young men these days.

And some older and ill advised characters too.

I’ll grow a mullet when I get back from Turkey, just you see.

Another highlight was The Greatest Monroe, a team, led by owner Jordan Yorath, from Monroe Estate Agents who performed the title song from the film The Greatest Showman.

Whether Jordan walks into the office every morning wearing a shiny tuxedo, top hat and carrying a cane, I’m not sure, but I bet he is tempted after that performance.

St George’s Crypt has worked with homeless people in Leeds since 1930 and has developed a comprehensive service to combat the revolving door of homelessness and support clients to manage their addictions and deal with issues.

Yorkshire Property Charitable Trust was established in 2015 by members of the property sector in Leeds.

The next big event the trust is organising is the annual football and netball matches between members of the property community in September followed by its annual lunch at first direct bank arena which I am looking forward to compering.

Through the Maggie’s Yorkshire charity I’ve managed to get broadcaster Mark Chapman to be the guest speaker at the event.

He’s a brilliant presenter of Match of the Day and on 5 Live and I’m sure his current work hosting matches for the BBC at the World Cup will provide a few stories he can tell us at the event.

Anyone wanting more information about Crypt Factor, Yorkshire Property Charitable Trust or to find out about singing in next year’s event, should email gilly@yorkshirepropertycharity.com or DM via the Yorkshire Property Charitable Trust’s LinkedIn page.

:::

I’VE always believed that the property sector is one of the most tight-knit and supportive parts of the Yorkshire business community and Crypt Factor certainly shows that.

I witnessed the property community coming together again this week to remember one of their own.

Matthew Faulkes, director at Carter Towler, the Leeds-based property agents, passed away in May and his funeral was held this week at Pontefract Crematorium.

The cars queuing to get into the car park and many having to leave their vehicles on nearby roads illustrated the turnout of people wanted to remember and pay their respects to Matt.

He was just 52 when he died and leaves two sons and he and his wife would have celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary this month.

I didn’t know Matt well, we used to chat when we saw each other in Sous le Nez, but he was a great friend of my late friend Rodney Dalton and I know how highly Rodney rated him.

It was with Matt’s support that I was able to put on a charity tribute lunch to Rodney at Aspire in Leeds last year.

He took a table and, importantly, was a great sounding board when I was planning the event, given we all wanted to make sure it was the perfect tribute to our friend.

There were hundreds of people at Matt’s funeral on Tuesday.

Which shows how popular and how valued he was.

:::

A NEW aparthotel has recently opened in York which has apparently been inspired by the city’s medieval history.

The 46-suite hotel in Micklegate features self-contained apartment units aimed at people having longer stays in York.

It will be operated by SuperCity, which already has similar aparthotels in London, Manchester, Leeds, Brighton and Edinburgh.

The aparthotel was initially due to open in 2023 but was delayed after part of York’s original medieval wall was found at the site and during excavations, architects found items which dated back to the Roman period.

Architects brown + company (I wonder how much they had to pay some design company to come up with the lower case and + instead of ‘and’ in their name?) focused on making the exterior design blend in with the character of York and drew inspiration from the medieval jettied timber-framed buildings that once lined Micklegate.

It is a thoughtful approach, but for anyone wanting to get a realistic taste of medieval York, I suggest you observe the stag dos doing the Micklegate Run of pubs and bars on a Friday and Saturday night.

It is a kerfuffle enough to make Richard the Lionheart quiver.

Have a great weekend.

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“I DIDN’T want to become a victim of the grief.”

That’s what Ben Ziff said when he told me that he had spent six months writing a song about his baby daughter Celine who died from a rare cancer last year.

Celine, who has a twin brother Jesse and older sister Luna, was just one year and 19 days old when she passed away.

She had such a short life but Ben said that Celine brought such joy, personality and love to her family during that time that it inspired him to try to tell her story through a song.

He teamed up with a family friend, singer songwriter Bertie, to write and record Big Little Life (Cece’s Song).

The pair have recently released the song which is available on all major music streaming platforms and all proceeds will go to support the work of Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice in London, which cared for Celine.

A painting that Celine created with Jesse and six-year-old Luna has become the cover of the single and a short video of the children making the artwork plays when the song is streamed on Spotify.

Bertie (left) and Ben are pictured above holding the canvas the children created.

Celine had an extrarenal rhabdoid tumour - an extremely rare and aggressive condition that affects just one in 12 million children globally - and spent seven months of her life being treated at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

Ben is an entrepreneur who grew up in Yorkshire and now lives in London where he is managing director of CitiPark and a board director of stock market listed property group Town Centre Securities (TCS) the company headed by his father Edward and founded by his grandfather, the late, great Arnold Ziff.

“This is not a sad song, although it comes from a very sad story,” Ben told me.

“There was so much joy in Celine’s life. She had a huge personality, she demanded attention and she made an enormous impact on all of us.

“As a family we wanted to create something that captures who she really was.

“My only endeavour was not to become a victim of the grief. I wanted to tell Celine’s story and create something positive that celebrates her life and forms part of her legacy.

“I’m reaching the point where I feel so lucky and happy to have known her,” added Ben.

Ben, who plays drums as a hobby but had never written a song before, approached Bertie in September 2025 with the idea of creating a song in Celine’s memory.

Together with his wife Sophia, Celine’s mum, he wanted to create a series of legacy projects that would celebrate their daughter’s personality, happiness and the impact she had on everyone around her.

Bertie, a singer-songwriter whose music has attracted hundreds of thousands of listens across platforms including Spotify and Apple Music, had experienced his own loss after his mother Yvonne died from leukaemia in April 2024.

He had previously written a song called Kin about his mother and he and Ben began writing together just weeks after Celine’s death and spent six months creating Big Little Life (Cece’s Song).

Bertie said: “When someone passes away people often say, ‘If there is anything I can do, let me know.’

“When Ben asked me to work with him on writing a song about Celine, initially I didn’t know whether I could do it.

“But working on this together was like a second processing of my own grief after losing my mum. It was an incredibly uplifting experience.

“There are a lot of parallels between my mother’s time in hospital and Celine’s time in hospital.

“From the beginning, we knew we didn’t want this to be a song that leaves people feeling sad.

“There needed to be a truth to it. It needed to genuinely do something for this little person.

“It feels like an authentic representation of a part of Celine’s legacy and I’m so proud of what we have created,” said Bertie who quit a 9 to 5 job in finance to pursue a music career full-time and has recorded 18 songs which have been streamed several hundred thousand times.

Big Little Life (Cece’s song) was produced by Ru Lemer, who has worked with artists including Tom Grennan, Foals and Nile Rodgers.

It was mastered at London’s famous Air Studios by Grammy-winning mastering engineer John Webber, who has worked on five UK number ones and with artists such as Olivia Dean, David Bowie, Elton John and Duran Duran.

Ben, Bertie and Ru all feature on vocals on the final recording.

Ben said Big Little Life (Cece’s Song) is the first of several legacy projects he hopes to create in Celine’s memory.

He added: “She was only with our family for one year and 19 days, but the happiness she brought and the impact she had were enormous and I wanted to tell her story.

“She had a little life, but it was a big little life.”

Big Little Life (Cece’s Song) is available to download and stream on
Spotify Apple Music YouTube Music and all major music platforms.

All proceeds will support Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice in Barnet in North London.

I’m not a music aficionado but I know what I like and having listened to Bertie’s songs on Spotify I can tell you he is a gifted songwriter and singer with the rare ability to write songs you can hear once and sing along to.

Inspired by the anthemic storytelling of Oasis and the communal energy of Mumford & Sons, Bertie has carved out a sound that sits perfectly on festival stages.

Bertie has played more than 220 shows including iconic venues such as Glastonbury Festival, the Roundhouse and Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club.

The song about his mum called Kin is powerful and emotional and the intelligence of the lyrics and the beauty of the music make it something anyone who listens to it can identify with.

Other songs of Bertie’s I particularly like are Retract and Friday Street, a foot-tapper that really captures that uplifting feeling you get when you finally reach Friday after a long working week.

I loved the description of his music in his biography: “Built around big choruses, honest lyrics, and relentless audience participation, his live shows are designed to turn a field of strangers into a room full of voices.”

Bertie has raised more than £20,000 for charity through a series of independently organised benefit concerts, reinforcing his belief in music as a force for collective good.

In 2025, he was a finalist in the Glastonbury Pilton Party Competition and the winner of the Glastonbury Bread & Roses Stage Solo Artist Competition.

He is also a winner of the 2024 JBL & Martin Garrix Emerging Artist Academy and was named Yamaha Music UK Emerging Artist of the Year in 2023.

Ben’s company CitiPark operates car parks across the UK in cities including London, Manchester and Leeds.

He also leads TCS Energy, which he set up in 2012 to invest in renewable energy production and storage.

In that time, the company has established a partnership with Tesla and built the UK’s largest solar farm in a city centre, located at Leeds Dock.

He was also instrumental in TCS’s investment in YourParkingSpace.co.uk in 2016.

YourParkingSpace was sold in July 2022 for £129m, netting TCS a return of 18 times its initial investment.

Ben is not yet 40 but has achieved a great deal in his career already.

However the legacy he creates for Celine will, I know, be the achievement he values the most.

Big Little Life (Cece’s Song) is now available to download and stream on
Spotify Apple Music YouTube Music and all major music platforms.

:::

A NOTE arrives from reader Dave Robbins.

All this reader feedback could go to my head.

And if it doesn’t then it is a good way of filling this blog.

Retired man-about-town Dave writes: “Thank you for your obituary on the Denby Pottery.

“Perhaps I shouldn’t admit to this as it probably speaks volumes about not moving with the times. Well, certainly in terms of crockery.

“Back in 1977 my late mum-in-law (I use ‘mum’ rather than ‘mother’ because Pam was an absolute gem) won a complete Denby Ware breakfast, dinner and tea service, having paid 50p for a raffle ticket at a charity do in Bradford.

“She presented it to the then Miss C (later to become Mrs R) for our bottom drawer. It’s still in use. Indeed I enjoyed my al fresco breakfast toast and tea off said Denby Ware plates, cup and saucer on this delightfully warm Yorkshire morning. Denby Ware has been part of my daily life for nigh on 50 years and I was genuinely sad when I heard the company had gone into administration. Maybe their quality control was so good it was a feature of their demise.

“Keep up the good work. If nothing else, writing to you, prevents me from getting on with what I really should be doing.”

Thanks Dave.

A distraction for people who don’t want to get on with their daily chores.

That’s probably the best compliment this blog has ever received.

:::

A COUPLE of weeks ago I mentioned that reader Richard Doyle had enlightened me that most of the eels found in Britain are from the Sargasso Sea.

Long story short, I’d correctly answered a quiz question naming the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean as the only sea in the world with no land boundaries.

Former technology entrepreneur Richard, who now runs peer board business Pabasso, offered to send me a book about eels to add to my very limited knowledge of this expanse of water and its slippery sea life.

The book has duly arrived and rather than being the dry tome I expected, The Book of Eels: Their Lives, Secrets and Myths by Tom Fort looks an interesting and witty book which is already on my list of holiday reading.

Indeed the Literary Review said: “Tom Fort is the Alan Bennett of the angling scene.”

Ooh mother you’ve got your rod stuck in a bush, come away from the riverbank and have a cup of tea and a sponge finger.

The myths of eels, who knew?

I think it could provide an alternative to going to see Christopher Nolan’s cinematic retelling of Homer’s ancient Greek epic The Odyssey.

Another reviewer from the New Scientist described The Book of Eels thus: “Fascinating, beautifully written and deeply peculiar.”

A bit like me and my blog.

I’m sure there is one bit of that you’d agree with.

Have a great weekend.

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IF there is one thing that is going to keep you focused as an event compere then it is 300 burly East Yorkshire farmers and their friends gathered in a marquee having enjoyed the bounties of a free bar.

As I stared out at this teeming multitude of tweed and Schöffel gilet clad characters last Friday lunchtime I decided I needed to get on their good side and find something we had in common.

So I said I hoped they had had a good morning’s shooting at the Raisthorpe Manor charity clay pigeon shooting event in the heart of the stunning Yorkshire Wolds countryside.

And I told them there is nothing I like more than taking my gun out on the estate.

Well, it is the only way I can get to ASDA safely.

While that was an attempt to curry favour with the farmers I’m not sure it would have gone down as well with ASDA chairman Allan Leighton, whose daughter Becky works at Martin House children’s hospice, which, along with Candlelighters, were the two beneficiaries of last week’s event.

David and Julia Medforth and their sons Edward and Oliver have created what I am told is the UK’s largest clay pigeon shooting range in the grounds of their farming estate near the picturesque village of Thixendale.

This lesser known part of rural Yorkshire, the Wolds, are a serene, unspoiled range of low chalk hills between the Vale of York and the North Sea coast at Flamborough Head.

If you haven’t visited this vibrant, sweeping landscape then you may well have seen them in the artwork of painter David Hockney as they inspired much of his later works.

Poignantly and coincidentally, his death, at the age of 88, was announced last Friday morning.

While many talked of his early artwork being inspired by his time living in Los Angeles, he had a home in Bridlington in his later years and it is from there that he explored the beauty of the Wolds.

I doubt there are many who have plotted a route between the City of Angels and Brid, but it certainly worked for Bradford-born Hockney.

Back in the marquee on the Raisthorpe estate, I threw in a few self-deprecating quips (I have plenty of material) before complimenting the audience on some creative team names such as High Birds!, Pull and Pray, The Premature Ejectors…and Clarion.

I gave Jonathan Simms and his team from the law firm a wave and said to the audience that we can’t really expect lawyers to be creative…until it comes to their bills.

That went down well and Jonathan took it in the spirit in which it was intended.

I hope.

Then it was time to kick off a game of heads and tails.

You may have taken part in similar games at other charity events but I do mine differently.

I don’t flip a coin.

That’s mainly because I was once told I was a useless tosser.

I ask questions with two possible answers and the audience has to pick one of those options by putting their hands on their heads or their bums.

It always helps to make the questions topical so one of those I asked last week was about Laveracks Butchers of Pocklington which had supplied the pork pies and other meat products consumed by guests during the morning’s shooting.

I asked the audience how many they had eaten?

As I saw a stout, ruddy-faced chap start to count on his fingers, I had to clarify that it wasn’t how many they had eaten individually, but in total.

If you are interested it was 320 pork pies.

Well at least it helped soak up the beer and champagne.

As well as operating the very popular Raisthorpe Flyers shooting range, the Medforth family are also behind the successful Raisthorpe Manor drinks brand which sells gin, vodka, rum, port and whisky as well as Yorkshire Tonic.

One of my questions was about how many awards Raisthorpe Manor has won for its products - 52 - and in another I asked how many different flavours of tonic they make, which is five.

I was slightly surprised when I asked the audience what they thought was the favourite film of charity auctioneer Richard Smailes - The Sound of Music or Silence of the Lambs.

My surprise was how many people thought Richard would be a fan of the Julie Andrews musical about a nun in the Alps rather than the movie about a serial killer who eats his own victims.

But each to their own.

When those taking part had been whittled down to just four still on their feet having answered all the preceding questions correctly, I invited them up to the front to stand on stage for the final questions to decide the winner.

I asked each their name which went well until I got to the fourth person, a large, tweed and check-shirted bespectacled man who told me he was called “Jasmine”.

That was greeted with hoots of laughter from the audience and I quickly deduced that that wasn’t his real name.

But rather than taking a forensic approach to discovering his proper monicker I turned to the audience and said what a lovely name he had before jumping forward pretending he had groped me - a gag used to great effect by Eric Morecambe.

I suppose you had to be there to appreciate it.

But take my word, it worked for this audience.

Given the prize for the winner of the heads and tails game was a 0.6 carat diamond pendant in a white gold setting worth £2,250 from Berry’s Jewellers, it was nice that it was won by the only lady in the final four contestants.

Over lunch it was interesting to chat to Edward and Oliver Medforth and I said someone had told me that one of them had taken part in the TV show The Apprentice last year.

“That was me,” said Ollie.

I asked him how he got on, having not watched the show since it ditched any pretence it is about business and became a vehicle for would-be influencers and TV presenters.

“I was fired by Lord Sugar in the first episode,” replied Ollie.

He got the bullet after taking part in a task to make and sell brownies and forgot to put flour in the mixture.

But every cloud - Ollie said each contestant gets paid the same amount whether they are on the show for one week or all 12 weeks.

And he said the entry process to actually get on The Apprentice, to which thousands apply, was a more valuable experience than being on the show itself.

Despite my early reservations about the boisterous audience they were lively but attentive and fun and very generous, digging deep and bidding high in the auction for the two great children’s charities, Martin House and Candlelighters.

Raisthorpe only hold their charity clay day every three years, so I will have to take it easy with the miniature bottle of sloe gin I left with.

:::

FAREWELL then Denby Pottery.

The 217-year-old Derbyshire ceramics company has closed after administrators were appointed in March after it had struggled with rising energy and labour costs.

Earlier this month the final pieces were fired in the kilns at Denby, wheeled in by a member of staff who had worked there for more than 50 years.

I grew up in a village not far from Denby and as part of work experience at school I spent a week at the pottery one summer.

I was trying to think what year it was and then I remembered that There Must Be an Angel by Eurothymics was on the radio in the factory so it must have been 1985.

That chap who wheeled the last pots to the kiln would have been working there then.

I was put in the quality control department and sat in the glass office with the manager in charge looking out at a team of people whose jobs it was to check that each item of pottery was up to scratch before putting a gold Denby Pottery sticker on it.

The staff were on piece work and one lady, who I remember was called Vanda, had perfected a style of checking the pottery that ensured she was able to complete twice as much work as anyone else.

I watched her checking and stickering a tower of saucers one day and it was just a blur of movement.

So the departmental manager spent much of his time trying to deal with the protests of her fellow workers that she was earning more than them.

I suppose it was an early glimpse of classic British industrial unrest which was captured brilliantly in films like I’m All Right Jack and Carry On at Your Convenience.

I don’t know whether I imaged this scene in Carry On at Your Convenience, but I think it happened:

Shop steward Vic Spanner, played by Kenneth Cope, is addressing fellow workers at the W C Boggs toilet factory supported by his deputy, played by Bernard Bresslaw.

Cope shouts: “What do we think of the management?”

To which Bernie responds: “Down with ‘em!”

Vic Spanner shouts: “What do we think of our working hours?”

Bernie: “Down with ‘em!”

Watching works manager Sid James comments: “Knickers!”

To which Bernie answers: “Down with ‘em!” before the workforce bursts into laughter leaving him looking very sheepish.

Forget Shakespeare, this is the kind of writing that makes Britain great.

Have a great weekend.

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THE more observant of you will have spotted that the World Cup has now started.

It is going to be the biggest ever with 48 teams playing 104 matches in the USA, Canada and Mexico over 37 days.

The TV channels have been showing clips of memorable World Cup moments and a colourised version of the full 1966 World Cup Final - England’s last and only time it won the competition - was shown on the telly last weekend.

It had me reflecting on my favourite World Cup memory.

Diego Maradona’s handball goal and incredible dribbled masterpiece against England in 1986 was a memorable but not particularly enjoyable highlight.

Italia 90 was fun.

I was at university in Huddersfield - well it was a polytechnic but it turned into a uni just before I graduated so I’m sticking with that description - and watched England’s matches in the student union bar.

Sipping Ward’s Sheffield Bitter from plastic cups I reminded anyone who would listen that two of the England team that made it all the way to the semi-finals were Derby County players, Peter Shilton and Mark Wright.

The club has two players in this year’s tournament but both are likely to be on the bench for Sweden and Norway.

My favourite World Cup memory doesn’t involve football.

Well it does, but not really.

It is Diana Ross’ penalty miss at the opening ceremony of the 1994 tournament in Soldier Field, Chicago.

For those who don’t remember it, the former Supremes lead singer emerged on the pitch at the stadium singing the opening lines of her song I’m Coming Out surrounded by hundreds of dancers.

Still singing, or miming I’m not sure, the song, the pop queen runs and skips across the pitch towards a goal guarded by a goalkeeper.

There is a ball on the penalty spot which I imagine the person who created the opening ceremony hoped Diana would kick into the net beyond the despairing dive of the keeper before the goal frame bursts apart in spectacular fashion.

Unfortunately Diana Ross can certainly sing, dance and run but I don’t know whether she had a great deal of experience kicking a football as she missed her penalty - it went wide.

The goalie still dived and the goal net did still burst asunder but 32 years on, I still cringe at the memory.

I bet Diana doesn’t, she’s moved on, but I haven’t.

The sports news website The Athletic produced a very entertaining feature about the Diana Ross penalty miss this week ahead of the latest US-hosted World Cup.

They studied the footage of the incident on YouTube, noting that while Diana wore roomy clothing and comfortable trainers to take the kick, her body shape was all wrong.

Yorkshire-born sports commentator John Helm was covering the ceremony and opening match for Canadian broadcaster TSN and couldn’t stifle a chuckle as he observed: “Calamity! I’m not sure that was supposed to happen.”

The Athletic went to the trouble of consulting a specialist ball-striking coach called Bartek Sylwestrzak who helps professional footballers hone their shooting technique using in-depth video analysis.

Acknowledging it is the most unusual request for advice he has ever received, the coach entered into the spirit of things by delivering this analysis: “I would limit myself to saying that she kicked the ball like someone who has not worked on this skill,” he says. “One prominent feature of such a shot lacking expertise is that the hip flexion is very pronounced.”

Great stuff.

I just hope I’m not talking about missed penalties at the end of the current tournament.

:::

IT was nice to return to Martin House last Friday for the official opening of the rebuilt children’s hospice.

I was on the campaign board for The Build which helped raise the £21.9m needed to redevelop Martin House in Boston Spa near Wetherby.

The building, which opened in 1987, has been transformed to not just give it the equipment and facilities to care for the 550 children and young people from North, West and East Yorkshire in its care every year but to provide a warm, welcoming and fun environment too.

Former England football manager Sir Gareth Southgate - a longtime ambassador and supporter of the charity - officially opened the new building and told guests: “It genuinely transforms the lives of young people with life-shortening conditions every single day.”

Chief executive Clair Holdsworth and her team welcomed guests into the gardens of Martin House for the opening ceremony and while there were plenty of supporters of the hospice who attended there were also lots of children and young people and their families who are currently being supported by the hospice.

As I looked around at young children in wheelchairs and connected to a variety of medical equipment it underlined how crucial the role of Martin House is in our community and why The Build campaign was so important.

After a cup of tea and a slice of cake guests were given guided tours of the newly opened building.

I remember in one board meeting Clair wondering if we would be able to raise enough money to install a swimming pool.

Well they’ve now got one and bigger than originally planned.

There is a music room, sensory experiences, inspiring artwork on the walls and a specific wing where teenagers have their own kitchen and the request for an outdoor terrace to be like the one on Love Island has been delivered.

Although I’m told the architect had to do some extra research on that one as he wasn’t familiar with the popular TV show.

I managed to navigate through the entire event without mentioning missed penalties to Sir Gareth Southgate.

As well as the lovely Martin House team, it was nice to see Caroline Pullich who runs the private client arm of family run Yorkshire-based national insurance firm T L Dallas and Richard Jackson the former High Sheriff of West Yorkshire.

Another dignitary in attendance was former Lord Lieutenant of West Yorkshire Ed Anderson who asked me whether the jacket I was wearing was my latest commission from tailor James Michelsberg which has recently featured in this blog.

I was delighted to confirm it was.

With the redevelopment now complete, Martin House is making sure to thank everyone who supported The Build campaign but also to remind them that it costs £12m a year to run the hospice and there is no contribution from the government.

It is an annual challenge for Martin House to deliver that amount of funds but a glance around that garden last Friday at the smiling faces of children and their families despite their many challenges shows why it is so important.

:::

AFTER the Martin House event I headed from Boston Spa to Headingley to attend the Yorkshire v Lancashire T20 cricket match as a guest of IT consultancy Zenzero.

Chris Cadge and Jimmy Gribbon were great hosts but given both used to play in the front row for the Leeds Leos rugby team I wouldn’t have complained if they weren’t.

As Chris climbed over a row of seats I noticed the size of his feet which are apparently size 14.

They had sent joining instructions via Whatsapp and the dress code for the Howard Suite - which I would say is the smartest hospitality area in the ground - said smart denim jeans, shorts and fashion trainers were acceptable but no tracksuits, sport shorts or gym wear but replica cricket shirts were OK.

Apparently this now passes for “smart casual” at Headingley.

From glancing at many of the attendees I would say they had “dressed down” despite the low bar set by the dress code.

If they are that scruffy to go out, I wonder what they wear to do the gardening?

Rant over. Next one incoming.

Among the details sent over were instructions on how to access a ticket for the match.

First you needed to download the Yorkshire County Cricket Club tickets app and then register on it before being able to view your ticket.

I’ve heard people comment before about websites and apps not being very “intuitive”.

I would say whoever designed the YCCC tickets app was not so much unintuitive, more a clueless dimwit.

You’d think that the majority of people attending a Yorkshire cricket match would be from Yorkshire.

So why when you were asked to enter your nationality and telephone number was the UK option not at the top of the list rather than right down near the bottom?

I’m not sure whether I put all my details in correctly but if YCCC tries to contact me about attending more matches and they end up phoning Azerbaijan then it’s their own fault.

I enjoyed the cricket, which Yorkshire won at a canter, but given this used to be an annual sell-out fixture, I was surprised to see empty seats around the ground.

And not a beer snake in sight.

For the uninitiated, that is where supporters at a cricket match slot their empty plastic pint glasses together to create a long tube or “snake”.

I’ve seen ones at Headingley before that must have been 50 feet long.

Some in the crowd even tried to stand it upright and it waved around to “oohs” and “aahs” from fans before crashing to the ground and all the cups being cleared into a wheelie bin by a steward who someone in the crowd decided looked like Jim Bowen, the comic who used to present TV darts quiz show Bullseye.

That was enough to make sure that every time he reappeared in the stands a large section of the crowd would chant: “Super, smashing, great!”

Fond memories.

:::

MUCH response to my piece last week about the scourge of masked young men on electric bikes.

Plenty of people have shared their thoughts about this growing menace and how it should be dealt with.

Up to now I’m yet to receive any representations from the scrotes on bikes lobby so I shall wait a week to give them time to put forward their thoughts before returning to the subject next week.

Have a great weekend.

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AT last, something appears to be happening.

I’ve complained here before about the number of electric bikes and scooters that are ridden on pavements and pedestrianised areas in Leeds city centre.

And I know it isn’t a problem just confined to this city.

Most of those riding these bikes appear to be delivery riders for companies like Deliveroo and Just Eat but you increasingly see teenage boys in black clothing and balaclavas riding them around in a very intimidating fashion.

I saw one being ridden by a middle-aged man in full Leeds United kit on a pavement near the Victoria Quarter on Tuesday.

I didn’t know which part of that upset me most.

Every time I have walked across a pedestrianised part of Leeds city centre recently, several of these bikes have either been ridden across my path, straight towards me or flown past me.

When I was driving along a one-way street one of these ebikes was even coming the other way down the middle of the road.

But now I see that Leeds City Council has pledged to improve safety for pedestrians and shoppers on Briggate, the city’s main pedestrianised shopping street.

The council has held a public consultation on the Briggate Action Plan over concerns about the high number of bikes travelling through the pedestrianised area and more than 2,100 people responded.

Proposals included anyone using a bike or e-bike to dismount and walk it during pedestrian hours and a restriction of pedlars to specific areas.

The consultation showed strong support for the measures, with 87% in favour of requiring bikes to be walked, 84% supporting extended pedestrianised hours, and 69% backing restrictions on pedlars.

That probably reflects the order of my concerns.

It is the scrotes on bikes I’m bothered about, I’m less worried about the tinkers with trolleys selling bowls of sweetcorn, mobile phone covers and yapping fluffy toy dogs.

Following the results, Leeds City Council is now developing the next phase of the scheme, including applying for the necessary legislation.

The new measures are expected to be introduced within the next six to 12 months.

Which will be well before the work is completed at the front of Leeds railway station.

:::

DID you read the recent news about the British woman who has been named as Flatpack World Champion?

Well don’t worry, I read it for you and will summarise.

Hayley McAuley, pictured above, from Wigan successfully defended the title she won last year by building a bedside table in eight minutes 20 seconds.

She said she was “over the moon” to retain her title at the Flatpack World Championships at the Grand Designs Live show at the ExCel centre in London.

Hayley, who is a warehouse worker, beat her winning time of nine minutes and 33 seconds at last year’s event and was presented with a golden hex key medal at the event in May.

I had to Google what a hex key is, apparently it is more commonly known as an Allen key.

Hayley’s skills mean that she has also launched her own flatpack furniture support business, which I assume is a sophisticated way of describing her coming round to your house and putting your IKEA drawers and wardrobes together for you.

I have to say that I was ahead of the curve on this one.

I suggested in a newspaper column years ago that there was a business in building IKEA furniture for others.

It was prompted by me putting together three IKEA bedside tables one Sunday morning (I actually think it took up most of the afternoon too).

I’m aware I’m not the most practical person in the world but this was laid bare by the fact it took me longer to build the third bedside table than it took to put together the first one.

:::

WHEN a giant US media conglomerate promises to build its latest theme park in the UK, you have to sit up and take notice.

Comcast NBCUniversal has committed to create its first Universal theme park in Europe in Bedfordshire.

Universal expects the site, where enabling works are currently in progress and construction will soon begin, to generate almost £50bn of economic benefit for the UK economy by 2055.

No wonder Chancellor Rachel Reeves donned a hard hat and hi-vis jacket to visit the site this week.

The theme park is expected to attract millions of visitors each year including more than a million from overseas.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it was “one of the largest-ever investments in the UK tourism sector” and would bring nearly 20,000 jobs during construction and a further 8,000 jobs when the resort opens in 2031.

The government will support the project with an investment of £1.3bn on regional and local community infrastructure to ensure the park can operate successfully, with improved transport links for local residents and visitors from across the UK and abroad.

Following the site visit, the Chancellor and culture secretary Lisa Nandy hosted Brian Roberts, chairman of Comcast Corporation, and Mark Woodbury, chairman and chief executive of Universal Destinations & Experiences, at 11 Downing Street to unveil the resort’s name and logo.

Woodbury said the resort would bring “immersive storytelling, thrilling attractions and unparalleled creativity and innovation to the UK”.

With that kind of build up there shouldn’t just be a drum roll for the name unveiling but a trumpet fanfare too.

So, pray tell us, what is the name?

Universal United Kingdom Resort.

Oh, right.

I bet that took a small army of creatives months to come up with.

:::

THERE was a time when journalists would at least make an effort to look like they had put some work in to research a newspaper story.

Before the internet it was a trip to the cuttings library: every newspaper office had one, filled with tall shelves and filing cabinets groaning with brown cardboard folders filled with yellowing clippings from newspapers of yesteryear.

Then with the arrival of Google you didn’t even need to leave your desk to dig out background information when bashing out a story on your computer screen.

And now?

The arrival of artificial intelligence means the way journalists put stories together has changed again.

My friend Ged Futter pointed out this recent headline from a story on the Yorkshire Evening Post website:

“The 10 best neighbourhoods to live in Leeds during the summer according to ChatGPT”.

There are some questions I’m tempted to ask AI about the future of journalism, but I think it would just depress me.

:::

FAREWELL then John Kear.

The former rugby league player and coach died on Sunday aged 71 on his return from commentating for the BBC on Wigan’s Challenge Cup triumph at Wembley.

A popular figure in rugby league, Castleford-born Kear’s coaching career covered 700 games and he won the Challenge Cup twice with Sheffield Eagles and Hull FC.

As a broadcast summariser he had a nice turn of phrase and was never short of a pithy one liner when he was behind the microphone.

His passing brought back memories of a story that one of the rugby writers at the Yorkshire Post told me.

Kear was being interviewed as Hull FC prepared to defend the Challenge Cup they had won at Cardiff in 2005.

He was asked whether, having already won the cup, he and his team would retain the same level of ambition to win it again.

“Oh yes, definitely,” replied Kear, “it is a bit like if you’ve had one Nolan sister, you then want them all.”

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THERE are a lot of people who believe Elvis will rise again, but if you had told me that the King of Rock n’ Roll would choose Bradford as the place to do it, then I’d have lost that bet.

Last Friday night, Elvis Presley really did rise again.

It wasn’t quite the second coming, more like the quadruple as four versions of the King appeared in Bradford at the Elvis Tribute Artist World Tour show at the Bradford Live venue.

What was I doing there?

Well I kindly accepted an invitation from my friend Nathan Lane of Campfire PR - I tend to be his wingman for all the shows his wife Zoe and other close friends can’t make it to or don’t want to go to.

And when it comes to Elvis tribute acts, Frankie Valli and artists of that vintage, I’m there like a rat up a drain pipe.

Although I have turned down an invite to join Nathan at Barry Manilow’s upcoming show at Leeds Arena.

That’s a bridge too far.

Anyway I was also interested in seeing Bradford Live, the city’s newest music and entertainment venue with 3,800.

The auditorium, right next to the famous Alhambra Theatre, is a former Odeon cinema which lay derelict for many years before a £50m restoration project saw it reopened last year.

Originally opened in 1930 as the New Victoria, it was the third-largest cinema in Britain and the first to be purpose-built for “talkies,” complete with a ballroom and a 200-seat restaurant.

Renamed the Gaumont in the 1950s, it became the largest indoor concert venue in the North of England and hosted rock and roll royalty, including Buddy Holly in 1958, The Rolling Stones in both 1963 and 1965 and The Beatles in 1967.

It was converted into a multi-screen Odeon cinema and Top Rank bingo hall in 1969 when much of the art deco plasterwork was stripped out.

The Odeon closed in 2000 and the building fell into disrepair and for years was at the centre of a bitter row between the city’s urban regeneration company who wanted to demolish it to make way for new developments and local campaigners who wanted the historic building restored to its former glory.

Nathan was actually doing the public relations for Bradford URC at that time and remembers it well.

I was business editor of the Yorkshire Post and used to receive the well written press releases proclaiming all the shiny new opportunities in Bradford that the demolition of the Odeon would lead to.

But Maud Marshall and her team at Bradford URC were up against campaigners led by John Pennington, a flamboyant nightclub owner and former president of the city’s chamber of commerce.

He and his campaign group recorded a song to call for the Odeon to be saved and I remember he even got a group of ladies who I assume were dancers he knew from the nightclub scene to don skimpy shorts each with a letter on and pose in front of the venue spelling out: “Save the Odeon” or some such slogan.

We of course used the photograph in the paper.

If you asked me what I thought of that stunt now, I would say it was very much of its era.

Things have of course moved on, although I don’t know whether I have.

It took a quarter of a century but the Odeon has finally been born again as Bradford Live.

It is an impressive refurb job, but then for £50m I suppose it should be.

The art deco exterior of the building juxtaposes with the bare brick interior of the venue.

When Nathan and I walked from Bradford Interchange station across Centenary Square and its mirror pool, both of us remarked how attractive and litter free the city centre is.

After a meal at the award-winning curry restaurant the International (a report about one of its awards in the Bradford Telegraph & Argus was headlined: “International is top of the poppadoms again”) we headed into Bradford Live for a drink.

We were pretty confident our arrival had brought the average age of the audience down by at least 20 years until several young couples in their 20s rocked up in a variety of outfits spanning the 1950s to the 1970s.

One lady had a full black beehive hairdo and was the spitting image of Priscilla Presley in the early 1960s.

The show featured a line-up of four Elvis tribute acts.

What do you call four Elvis’s?

Nathan thinks its Elvi, but I’m not sure as my Latin isn’t as good as his.

The performers included two from the USA, Moses Snow who performed as Elvis in the 1950s and Aaron Walker who played The King in his leather clad ‘68 comeback special.

And there were two Brits, Chris Connor and Gordon Hendricks, each performing as Elvis during his 1970s jumpsuit years.

All four were brilliant performers, each bringing something different: Moses Snow had the hip-swinging energy of young Elvis, Aaron Walker resembled him closest, Chris Connor sounded most like him and the rhinestone-studded Gordon Hendricks…

Well this son of Stoke-on-Trent has certainly been on a journey since he went to Memphis in 2017 and was named the Ultimate Elvis Tribute Artist World Champion.

That journey may have taken in a couple of stops at the cosmetic surgeon given his smooth, sculpted features.

Although given he is aged 54, I wonder what he will look like if he is still performing at 70?

The packed audience lapped up the show and when the performers made their way to the front of the stage, plenty of women flocked forward in search of a kiss or to place Hawaiian lei garlands around their necks.

A security guard was positioned in one of the aisles, keeping a watchful eye on proceedings.

Although given the age profile of the audience I wondered whether it would be better to have a couple of paramedics and a defibrillator there instead.

One lady got so overwhelmed she made her way up the steps onto the stage carrying a large handbag before one of the stage hands intercepted her and guided her back down into the auditorium.

When we bought a drink during the interval I noticed a couple of trestle tables at the back of the bar covered with sheets and groaning with a variety of Elvis-related tat including handbags bearing 3D images of the King, mobile phone covers and key rings.

On a board behind there were T-shirts pinned up as well as three-foot lengths of different coloured satin beside a cardboard sign with the word “Scarfs £5” scribbled in marker pen.

I wasn’t tempted as I have more than my fair share of stylish cravats.

But these were not “scarfs” that you wear.

No, ladies in the audience bought them to then take to the Elvis performers so they could briefly drape them around their sweating necks before they were handed back with a kiss.

I did momentarily consider taking my cravat to the front for the Elvis treatment but thought better of it given the price of dry cleaning these days.

It was an enjoyable evening and experience and the opening of Bradford Live now gives the city another major performance venue alongside the Alhambra and St George’s Hall.

I hope Bradford’s renaissance continues.

And if you think that to do that it will need to attract more modern acts than Elvis tributes, I can tell you that is already happening.

Jasper Carrot played Bradford Live this week.

:::

MY mention of the Sargasso Sea as the correct answer to a quiz question last week brought this response from reader Richard Doyle, a technology entrepreneur who runs the Pabasso peer advisory board business.

“David, very interesting and amusing as usual.”

That wasn’t all he said, but I thought I’d savour it.

Richard went on: “I suspect deep in your memory, you will have lodged the Sargasso Sea as the birthplace of our native eels, who return, having travelled thousands of miles to spawn and die in the Sargasso Sea.

“The larvae ride ocean currents back to our rivers to spawn, but they are currently in huge decline.

“There is nothing more slippery than an eel, and you will have met many slippery characters in your time, that’s probably why you remembered it!”

I thanked Richard for his kind comments and illuminating information and he responded to say: “I have a couple of books about eels. Should you wish to know more, let me know if you would like to borrow one.”

Crikey.

How do I wriggle out of that one?

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I REALLY should spend more time in the office.

I’m not a great fan of working from home, but when you work for yourself there is less reason and motivation to trek into an office every day.

However I am fortunate enough to be based in the fantastic Gilbanks offices in the centre of Leeds.

The surroundings and the team there make it a very welcoming place and the perfect professional base in the city centre.

Gilbanks managing director Alex Duckett hosts a regular ‘principals’ dinner’ for representatives of the firms that have offices in the building at One Park Row.

Gathering in the newly decorated private dining room at Sous le Nez, it was great to meet a few office residents I already know and importantly several of those I don’t.

Before I sat down, Alex’s colleague, head of operations, Maria Hall, apologised to me and said my name card had been mislaid in the office and so I had a hand-written one.

It did give me the opportunity when I introduced myself to fellow guests to hold up my name card and say I hoped it wasn’t a reflection on the temporary nature of my status within Gilbanks.

Everyone laughed except Maria, who gave me a hard stare Paddington Bear would have been proud of.

Conversation around the table was lively and interesting.

Gilbanks is growing fast: it now has two offices in Manchester, another in Birmingham and the next one will be in Bristol with other cities around the UK on its target list too.

Alex organised a quiz and we were split into teams of two to answer four rounds of questions delivered between courses of the meal.

As well as general knowledge, there were questions about finance and Leeds and Yorkshire.

At the end of the meal I was shocked to learn that my quiz team partner Laura Guillon of Hall Brown Family Law and I were winners of the quiz with 17 points out of 20.

One of the questions asked by Alex was: “Which sea is the only one which has no land boundaries around it?”

Where I dragged the answer from, I don’t know, but deep in the back of my mind I had a tiny inkling that the answer could be the Sargasso Sea.

And it was.

Ask me where the Sargasso Sea is and I couldn’t tell you.

According to Wikipedia it is “a unique, landless body of water in the North Atlantic Ocean, bounded entirely by four massive ocean currents forming the North Atlantic Gyre”.

You’ll thank me for that one when you’re next on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?

You won’t even have to phone a friend.

Anyway our prize was a bottle of champagne each.

Which happens to be the first thing I’ve won since the Yorkshire Post was named Regional Business Newspaper of the Year in 2004.

The framed photo from that awards ceremony was removed from the Parkin mantelpiece some time ago.

That’s because I was pictured receiving the award from the host of the event, the now disgraced former It’s a Knockout presenter Stuart Hall.

Don’t worry I quickly replaced it with another photograph of me with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Have I told you that story?

:::

DID you read the news that has emerged this week that the Government has suggested that the UK could bid to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the North of England in the 2040s?

UK Sport has been commissioned to carry out an initial strategic assessment.

Britain has hosted the Olympic Games in London three times - 1908, 1948 and most recently 2012.

The Government is now looking at whether hosting the games in a region rather than just one city could be a huge boost for the northern economy.

Culture secretary Lisa Nandy said: “London 2012 showed what the Olympics can do for our country. It inspired a generation through sport, attracted huge investment and showed the best of Britain to the world.

“But while the North of England has driven so much sporting excellence, no matter the talent we produce, the sporting moments we create, and the world-class events we attract - for too long we have been told the Olympics is simply too big and too important to be hosted in the North.

“Not any more. It’s time the Olympics came North and we showed what we can offer to the world. I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that we’re starting the firing gun on a long overdue vote of confidence in the North.”

All very laudable.

But what was that last line Lisa?

“We’re starting the firing gun”?

Call me old fashioned and a pedant (and many people do), but I thought you fired the starting gun rather than starting the firing gun.

Let me quote from that deep source of knowledge the website English-grammar-lessons.co.uk which says: “‘Fire the starting gun’ is an English idiom. It means to start a process or event, especially one that involves competition or challenge.”

As gaffes go, Nandy’s malapropism is no biggie, as my younger readers might say.

Do you remember when one of Nandy’s predecessors as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, that beacon of wisdom and common sense Nadine Dorries, spoke at the launch of the Rugby League World Cup in 2022?

Addressing an entirely rugby league audience in St Helens, Dorries recalled her favourite memory of the sport: Jonny Wilkinson’s iconic matching drop goal to win the World Cup back in 2003.

The only problem? Wilkinson’s drop goal took place in the Rugby Union World Cup final.

:::

IF I’m being a pedant then I must highlight my own mistake in last week’s blog.

After the receipt of another glorious new jacket from the House of Michelsberg, I promised I would take tailor James Michelsberg out for a pint of Tetley and a cigar which we can smoke on the pavement outside The Three Legs pub on Briggate.

Except it isn’t on Briggate.

Reader Steve Wright of Candid PR commented: “At a time when honesty and transparency are everything in this age of misinformation, I feel it’s important to point out to discerning drinkers who might be visiting Leeds for the first time, that The Three Legs is on The Headrow rather than Briggate!”

Thank you Steve for pointing out the mistake.

Although I have to say that back in my journalistic pomp when I was at The Yorkshire Post and TheBusinessDesk, if a public relations person pointed out one of my failings that would have been enough for their press releases to be excluded from publication for a month.

Despite my mistake in locating the pub on the wrong street, that didn’t stop James Michelberg from finding it and sending me this photo from outside this palace of culture where the conversation and repartee rivals that of Dorothy Parker’s Algonquin Round Table of the 1920s.

I’ve told him that sadly our visit there will have to wait until the scaffolding comes down as I want him to have the full Three Legs experience.

Have a great weekend.

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I WATCHED a film called Saipan on Amazon Prime the other day.

This isn’t a movie about a long forgotten battle between the US and Japan in the Pacific theatre in the Second World War.

But it is about a major conflict.

That which erupted between Republic of Ireland manager Mick McCarthy and his star player, Manchester United midfielder Roy Keane.

It centres on Saipan, capital of the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific Ocean which is a United States territory.

That is where McCarthy took his team in 2002 to prepare for the upcoming World Cup in Japan.

Keane was angered about a perceived lack of planning by the manager and the poor quality of the hotel where they were staying, a lack of hot food and a boozing and partying culture among his team-mates.

The rift between the two men deepened and led Keane to calling Barnsley-born McCarthy “English” and the manager claimed Keane had faked an injury.

It resulted in Keane leaving Saipan, heading back to his Cheshire home and not playing in the tournament, in which the Republic of Ireland reached the last 16, being knocked out by Spain on penalties.

I remember this dispute being a big deal at the time, erupting as it did on the eve of a tournament, but I have to say I never thought there was a film in it.

That was where I was wrong.

The film is an entertaining watch and Éanna Hardwicke makes a very convincing Roy Keane.

Steve Coogan has been lauded for his acting, his comedy and his impressions, but this is one performance where I don’t think he nails it.

Roy Keane may have a well-earned reputation as a ruthless football hardman turned pundit not afraid to give both barrels which it comes to criticism but Mick McCarthy is no shrinking violet either.

In the film Keane stares down at the smaller McCarthy who is portrayed as a homely Yorkshireman with simple tastes.

In reality, at 6ft 1in McCarthy is at least two inches taller than Roy Keane and for anyone who has met him, the first impression is anything but homely.

I can tell you this from personal experience.

A flinty eyed McCarthy with a profile resembling that of an Easter Island stone head, once turned his anger and frustration on me.

It was after the second leg match of the 1994 First Division play-offs between Millwall and Derby County.

Derby had won the first leg 2-0 at the Baseball Ground and trouble was anticipated in the second leg at the New Den from the Millwall fans.

I was a junior reporter on the Derby Evening Telegraph and was sent down there to accompany the paper’s renowned football writer Gerald Mortimer just in case more than just a football match kicked off.

Mick McCarthy, who was the manager of Millwall, had written what I considered some pretty inflammatory notes in the programme which effectively said that the reputation of the club’s fans for creating an unwelcome environment for visiting teams would be particularly needed at that evening’s match.

After Derby took a 2-nil lead in the match - 4-0 on aggregate - Millwall fans invaded the pitch and kicked Derby goalkeeper Martin Taylor as the referee and both teams ran towards the tunnel.

When mounted police galloped onto the pitch to confront the marauding fans the police horses were kicked before order was restored and the rest of the match continued, which Derby won 3-1.

As the reporters waited for the post-match press conference I looked out of a window and saw Millwall fans rioting in the car park.

They overturned the BBC Radio Derby radio car and then attempted to tip over a police van with dogs in it.

The members of the press then gathered to hear from Millwall manager McCarthy and, as probably the only news reporter in the throng, I was incredulous that he was being asked about tactics, formations and off-sides rather than the scenes of hooliganism that were taking place.

A junior reporter aged 23, I think I was full of the naivete of youth and I asked Mick McCarthy if he thought his programme notes had been inflammatory and encouraged the shocking scenes we had just witnessed.

McCarthy fixed me with a piercing gaze and as he briefly considered my question I could hear the chairs on which all the other reporters were sitting being shuffled away from me.

By the time he answered, I felt like I was sitting on my own in a room with a searchlight shining down on me.

McCarthy replied to my question: “Well, you could think that…if you weren’t very bright.”

As he moved on to take a question about an own goal by Pat Van Den Hauwe, I sat there drenched in cold sweat trying to scribble shorthand into my notebook with a hand that wobbled like jelly.

So on that evidence alone, Mick McCarthy is no pushover.

And when it came to a fight between him and Roy Keane in their primes, I reckon the bookies might make them both even money.

However I would have a chunky wager on the man from Barnsley.

Because he let me live to write another day.

:::

“IT’s got a bit of an Ibiza vibe, hasn’t it?”

So said property entrepreneur Charlie Wardroper to me as I stood on the steps of Rudding Park Hotel last Thursday at ‘The Yorkshires’ Commercial Property Real Estate Awards.

Now I haven’t been to the party island of Ibiza, it may surprise you to know.

But I’m sure it isn’t as chilly as it was in Harrogate last week.

And I’m sure the outfits worn by the party people in Cafe Mambo, Manumission and Pacha don’t resemble the smart casual attire sported by the Yorkshire property community at an awards lunch in May.

But perhaps the “Ibiza vibe” was because there was a lady DJ-ing on the roof of Rudding Park as guests shivered at the outdoor drinks reception.

I have since learned that the DJ didn’t take requests, because my plea for her to play some Northern Soul, or failing that, anything by Steps, appeared to fall on deaf ears.

Anyway, the 900 or so attendees rapidly decamped into the huge marquee attached to the side of the hotel for the annual awards ceremony which celebrates the best of Yorkshire’s commercial property sector and raises lots of money for the Yorkshire Children’s Charity.

The event used to be a black tie dinner held in the evening and which went on until gone midnight but has now morphed into something more relaxed, starting at 3pm with a formal end at 9pm.

But given that all the nine awards were handed out before any food was served I think there may have been plenty of guests who were tired and emotional by the time it came to depart.

I was there as a guest of Shaun Watts and his colleagues from Chameleon Business Interiors, the Hull-based business which operates nationally and has considerable work on in Canada and the USA.

It was great to catch up with contacts from the region’s thriving property community, as friendly a bunch as you’ll find anywhere in Yorkshire business.

:::

I WAS chatting to a property professional at the awards who was telling me about a big project a construction company client of his is working on in Leeds.

There has apparently been a lot of toing and froing with the planning department at Leeds City Council over this job.

The particular planner the company is dealing with is proving particularly inflexible.

So they decided to invite the planner to visit the site in a suburb of Leeds so they could explain their plans in person.

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly do that,” the planning officer replied, “I live in Portugal.”

Unbelievable.

:::

I ZIPPED into Leeds last Thursday morning to collect my latest work of art created by tailor James Michelsberg.

That afternoon I wore the houndstooth jacket made with wool, silk and linen cloth from luxury Italian mill Loro Piana to the Yorkshire Commercial Real Estate Awards and again on Sunday to a summer party at Claire Thomas’s impressive event venue Wharfedale Grange hosted by the Friends of Alfie Martin charity.

It is a super jacket and James has done me proud yet again.

After a bit of Michelsberg-related banter with Jo, the manager of the Kiehl’s shop in the Victoria Quarter, I ascended the stairs to Baron von Michelsberg’s lair, where he revealed he has had his best ever April for sales and is now fully immersed in delivering suits for summer weddings, balls and other big events.

Despite the predicted demise of formal attire, James reports that his clients want smart, luxury garments for special occasions.

One chap recently commissioned a pink check sports jacket to wear to the Kentucky Derby race meeting.

He wasn’t just being flamboyant choosing pink, apparently the day is synonymous with the colour in honour of the Kentucky Oaks Survivors Parade which invites those who have overcome breast cancer to walk on the track in the lead up to the race.

He sent James a photo of himself wearing sunglasses and smoking a big cigar.

I’ve promised to take James out in Leeds and buy him a pint of Tetley and cigars and then we can smoke them on the pavement outside the Three Legs pub on Briggate.

I’m sure that is a photo that will make his Instagram feed.

Have a great weekend.

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IF you are a public relations company and you invite me to a party and give me a free drink, there is a possibility that I will mention you in this blog.

But if you invite me to your party, give me a free drink and mention me in a speech, then it is a nailed on certainty that you’ll get a mention.

I know, I’m that shallow.

So fair play to Peter Downey, who, along with Steve Clark, founded Source 25 years ago in Leeds.

I remember covering the firm’s launch in the pages of the Yorkshire Post.

The pair, having endured several years of working for an unlikeable and uninspiring individual who then ran a PR agency in Leeds, broke away and set up on their own.

Peter and Steve are now semi-retired and their agency is in the hands of Daniel Kennedy, Chris Hughes and, as Peter describes her, “the shy and retiring” Martha Phillips.

Martha, who never stops working, was busy mingling with clients and potential new clients when I arrived at last week’s party at the Manahatta bar in Leeds to celebrate Source’s quarter century.

Peter, who is a very accomplished and entertaining public speaker, told the gathered throng at the event: “I can’t speak for too long as I need to be back at the care home before they realise I’ve escaped.

“It is incredible to think it is Source’s 25th anniversary. Interestingly, in April 2001 the number one song in the hit parade was ‘I’m a Survivor’ by Destiny’s Child. How apt.

“We had the foot and mouth crisis – and we have certainly put our foot in our mouths a few times over the years.

“Apple introduced the iPod.

“And, to give the longevity some perspective, Source team members Ella and Annabel, hadn’t even been born.”

Unlike today, when the name of a company is created through focus groups, brand workshops and deep-dive strategy sessions, Peter admits that he got the name for the business from a bottle of booze.

He was drinking a bottle of Vodka Source at the end of a party and remembers: “It sounded quite trendy but also worked well with ‘A Reliable Source’, ‘Source of Inspiration’ and so on.”

Early clients included Forsyth Business Centres - the PR provided in return for a free office - Esporta Gym and Ster Century Cinemas.

Richard Marshall from Lupton Fawcett employed Source and the law firm stayed with them for more than 15 years.

Other clients over the years have been Callcredit, Ultimate Finance and Reward Funding and Source also did the PR for the launch of the Radisson SAS hotel in Leeds and worked with the company for another decade.

Peter told the audience: “Media relations was a bit different in those days. We didn’t email the release or article with a jpeg. Instead, we put a printed copy in a hard-backed envelope with a photograph. The story would then be published a couple of days later. Magazines were an even longer lead time taking months before it appeared.

“We used to tell clients it would be up to three months before they would see

anything, which took the pressure off!

“News delivery changed when visionaries like David Parkin, now a huge social media influencer, started TheBusinessDesk.com, which delivered ‘Tomorrow’s News Today!’”

Thanks Peter, very kind of you.

I’m not much of a visionary or a social media influencer, but this blog does get a few reads.

‘Tomorrow’s News Today’ was our slogan when we launched TheBusinessDesk in 2007 because we were literally publishing news online today that you wouldn’t read in a newspaper until the following day.

Although Lisa Darwin, a guest at the Source party and runs a series of fashion shows for business people, who helped us when we launched the UK’s first regional online business news service, reminded me of a slogan we also used at the time - which I must credit to my business partner Paul Snape.

Lisa and a small marketing team donned branded TheBusinessDesk jackets to hand out merchandise on the streets of Leeds promoting our new website.

The jackets had the words ‘I Get It Every Day’ printed on the back.

How times have changed.

I perhaps should ask Peter to reserve a bed at the care home.

:::

TALK of Leeds restaurant institutions La Grillade and The Flying Pizza following my recent reunion with French restaurateur Guy Martin-Laval did make me wonder if perhaps I’ve placed these eating places on too high a paradisial pedestal.

Were they really so much better than those restaurants around today?

But then a visit to San Carlo in Leeds city centre made me think that perhaps I’m not viewing the old eating institutions through rose-tinted spectacles.

I went to San Carlo on South Parade with my friend Nathan Lane, of Campfire PR and we were served anaemic negronis at the bar before sitting down for dinner.

We ordered our meal and some minutes later the waiter returned to our table to inform us that the restaurant had run out of veal, chicken and fillet steak.

This was before 9pm on a Thursday evening.

The restaurant was busy, but to completely run out of the meats that make up a large part of the dishes on the menu?

That’s a new one on me.

:::

I’VE been busy this week.

Busy watching a live webcam which sits high up on the roof of the grade II listed Parkinson Building, the Portland stone, art deco edifice at the University of Leeds.

Peregrine falcons have been nesting intermittently on the Parkinson Tower since 2018 and have hatched 18 chicks in that time.

This year a female has hatched four chicks in a gravel tray that the university has installed at the top of the tower and two webcams enable visitors to view what is going on up there.

Most of the time the female peregrine sits on top of her brood dozing or sprucing up her plumage, but when I tuned in yesterday morning she was feeding the remains of some unfortunate small bird to her hungry chicks.

I don’t think I’ve seen a peregrine falcon in the wild, they have historically been found in the uplands of the north or around sea cliffs but they now can be spotted on tall buildings in urban areas.

This noble-looking blue-grey bird of prey is actually the fastest animal on earth, reaching more than 200 mph when diving for prey.

The two webcams, positioned at the side and above the nest give visitors a great view of the mother and her chicks sitting rather incongruously looking out over the rooftops of the city and down below to Woodhouse Lane where traffic zooms by and groups of students stride along the pavement heading to and from their lectures.

When it comes to putting off work and procrastinating, I’m world class.

At least viewing the University of Leeds’ ‘PeregrineCam’ beats staring out of the window.

Sorry, I’ve got to go, the chicks have just woken up.

:::

I’VE got an unexpected day off today.

I was due to be compering the gala dinner of Hull-based education charity Run With It at the city’s MKM Stadium this evening.

But Hull City’s success in reaching the Championship play-offs means the club’s home semi-final against Millwall takes place tonight at the ground.

Given that Hull City’s place in the play-offs was only confirmed following the last match on Saturday, Run With It founder Lisa Dawson and her colleagues have had to inform the 300 guests that the dinner has been postponed at just a few days’ notice.

That isn’t normally news anyone would relish delivering.

But given that most attendees are businesses and individuals from Hull, they are delighted at their team’s success.

Run With It, which delivers innovative learning programmes for children and young people in inspiring settings such as football stadiums, Humberside Airport and the Flemingate shopping centre in Beverley, will be rearranging the dinner for the autumn - when, you never know, the MKM Stadium may be hosting Premier League football again.

In the meantime, I’ve filled my diary with an invitation from Caroline Pullich of the Bradford-based national insurance firm T L Dallas, who has squeezed me onto her table at the Harrogate Business Lunch today.

The guest speaker is the comedian Hugh Dennis - remember comedy double act Punt and Dennis?

They first emerged on the national stage in a TV show called The Mary Whitehouse Experience back in the early 1990s.

Hugh Dennis played a character called ‘Mr Strange’ whose catchphrase was “Milky milky”.

I don’t remember much more about it, but I do recall that when I was at journalism college during that period there was a lad from Bolton on our course known as “Milky Milky”

I have no idea why, but he was a bit strange.

Then again, I think we all were.

Have a great weekend.

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WITH its timber frames, historic oil paintings and sitting a metre or so lower than the streets which run past it, the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall in York reflects the history of this city from medieval times to today.

Dating from 1357, it is one of the finest original medieval guild halls in the world and is home to the Merchant Adventurers, whose tradition of entrepreneurship, wealth and experience has built York over the last 700 years.

From the merchants of the 14th century, via railways and chocolate to the modern day sectors of financial services and science, the city has thrived thanks to the enterprise of its people.

The founders of the Merchant Adventurers’ guild built the hall as a place to transact their business affairs, meet together socially, to look after the poor and to pray to God.

Being a Merchant Adventurer didn’t mean you had to set sail to the South Seas or head to the Silk Road of China to engage in trade.

It just meant you engaged in enterprise and commercial ‘venturing’ - business risk taking.

A Tudor Merchant Adventurer was quite simply a merchant who had risked their own capital in pursuit of trade.

So it seemed an entirely appropriate venue for the latest ‘Power of Partnerships’ event by Martin House children’s hospice last week.

The breakfast in the building’s Great Hall, brought together brought together business people from York and beyond to hear from a panel representing businesses that have come up with enterprising and very rewarding ways to support Martin House, which cares for babies, children and young people with life-shortening conditions from across Yorkshire.

Every year Martin House cares for more than 550 children and their families, as well as supporting around 200 bereaved family members, at its hospice in Boston Spa, in hospitals and in the community.

But it costs around £12m a year to provide this care, the majority of which comes from voluntary donations and fundraising.

Getting the backing of businesses and their staff, clients and customers has been crucial and it was fascinating to hear how firms - from local to global names - have come together to support the charity.

I hosted the event which had a really strong panel of business people.

Panellist Amardeep Sirha runs a data business based in Leeds and also spoke to attendees at the start of the event to tell the story of her baby son Simba, who passed away at Martin House on New Year’s Eve.

Amardeep explained to the audience that she hardly ever refers to notes when she is presenting for her business, Amarti, but was going to read from a prepared script given the emotions involved.

Standing beside a screen that showed lots of pictures of Amardeep and her husband with their beautiful, smiling son, she fought back tears to tell the uplifting story of how her family, at their very lowest ebb, were given constant support and care thanks to Martin House.

She said that one of the things she looked forward to when she had her first child was baking together in the kitchen.

Martin House’s chef Robin made that happen and Amardeep told how Simba had been beside her in the kitchen of the hospice as they made biscuits together.

Simba’s story was emotional but also uplifting. I have to admit that the photograph of him in his cot wearing a babygrow in the colours of the Brazil football team did bring a tear to my eye.

I knew I had to help channel this emotion felt by everyone in the room into energy to benefit the work of Martin House.

Amardeep’s fellow panellists were Samantha Scott, chief operating officer at Ello Group, which operates the Tastecard restaurant discount dining club, Tabea Powell, head of communications for the UK and Ireland at confectionery group Haribo and Mark Farnsworth, managing director of Yorkshire Garden Centres.

They were joined by Lizzie Philpott, philanthropy & partnerships team manager at Martin House.

All three firms have come up with innovative ways to engage their employees and their customers to support the charity.

Ello Group sold Tastecard membership for £1 for 12 months rather than almost £80 and gave all proceeds to Martin House.

The initiative raised tens of thousands of pounds and even got the backing of the MoneySavingExpert Martin Lewis.

Haribo - maker of those moreish chewy sweets eaten by kids and adults across the world - has its UK base near Pontefract in Yorkshire and became the main sponsor of Martin House’s biggest ever public appeal, The Build, to rebuild the hospice which was opened in 1987.

And Yorkshire Garden Centres raised a large amount of money for the charity through the Pennies scheme, in which customers are offered the opportunity to make a small donation when they make a purchase through a card transaction.

Mark Farnsworth told the audience that the average value of a purchase at their seven garden centres is around £30 and about a fifth of customers had chosen to make a donation.

With garden centres across Yorkshire - from Scarborough to Bingley - Mark said that supporting a Yorkshire charity that cares for children and their families from the whole region was really important to the company and their staff and customers.

All the panellists agreed that the support from the team at Martin House had been crucial to the success of their fundraising campaigns, which in essence underlines that this was the perfect illustration of the ‘power of partnerships’.

And with research showing that 90% of employees who work at companies with a strong sense of purpose say they’re more inspired, motivated, and loyal, it isn’t just the charities that benefit.

It was great to catch up with some of the attendees at the breakfast event in York including lawyer Rachelle Mahapatra from Irwin Mitchell in Leeds; Martin Farrington, former director of city development at Leeds City Council who is now chair of SLC Property; property entrepreneur Richard Boothroyd and Dominic Gibbons, managing director of Hull-based property developer Wykeland.

Property guru Richard Lewis, who was chairman of the campaign board for The Build, which I sat on, was there along with fellow supporter, architect Paul Mitchell of The Harris Partnership.

(In the photograph above, I’m the one at the front.)

It was also good to see Melanie Bancroft, head of marketing and business development at Hall Brown Family Law, who I am sure had her tongue firmly in her cheek when she told me rather breathlessly that it was great to meet me “in real life!” having read my blog for some time.

Now that’s my idea of an enthusiastic reader.

I must try and find another one.

:::

NEW proposals recently announced by the government will be focused on encouraging schools in England to serve healthier meals to pupils.

The idea is to stop schools offering unhealthy so-called ‘grab and go’ foods like sausage rolls and pizza every day.

Very sugary desserts would also be limited to once a week and replaced with fruit for most of the week instead.

The new plans are also pushing for more vegetables and whole grains to be used in school dinners in a bid to improve children’s health and nutrition.

It brought back memories of school dinners at my comprehensive school.

I once had pizza and chips for lunch every day for a week.

It got to the point where my favourite dinner lady would see me in the queue and drop the pizza in the deep fat fryer.

Yes I know, deep fried pizza.

I know I shouldn’t but I’m tempted to park the matcha oat latte and superfood salad and go in search of a well done deep fried pizza for lunch today.

Well, it is Friday.

Any recommendations?

And I think a crisp Pouilly Fuisse would complement it beautifully.

:::

THANK you to everyone who got in touch after last week’s piece on former Leeds restaurateur Guy Martin-Laval.

My suggestion of organising a reunion lunch for him and his friends and customers has been well received and Guy is working on providing me with a date when he can make the trip from France to Yorkshire in the autumn, hopefully along with Adriano, who owned another Leeds eating institution, The Flying Pizza.

What I think was lovely was the way that many people recalled memorable occasions spent at Guy’s La Grillade, but also their favourite meal - mainly steak and frites.

Man about town Michael Michaelson, with his trademark understatement, commented: “Brilliant David!! La Grillade remains my favourite all time restaurant!!

“I’m up for that lunch or dinner, but only if you ask Guy how he is and gives that immortal answer: ‘Average’.”

Cheers and have a great weekend.

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A MESSAGE arrives out of the blue from Gallic restaurateur Guy Martin-Laval, formally of this parish.

Guy, who ran French brasserie La Grillade in Leeds for more than 30 years before decamping back to France, was briefly back in Yorkshire last week and I met him for lunch at The Whitehall Restaurant and Bar, just a stone’s throw from his old basement establishment on Wellington Street.

Fortunately he was impressed by the fish and chips on the lunch menu and approved of my choice of wine so an international incident was avoided.

He’s enjoying life in the sunshine on the south west coast of France and spends his winters skiing in the Pyrenees.

We reminisced about some of the characters who used to dine at La Grillade.

It was a favourite of writer and Yorkshire living legend Alan Bennett and many of the actors performing at plays and shows at the theatres in Leeds would frequent the subterranean restaurant rubbing shoulders with the entrepreneurs and dealmakers who helped establish the city’s modern business reputation.

The steaks cooked at La Grillade by the chefs Renzo and Willy remain the finest I have ever had, accompanied as they always were by frites and a simple lettuce salad and washed down with French wines, some which came from Guy’s vineyard in Languedoc-Roussillon.

It must be 15 years since Guy abruptly shut his restaurant one Christmas, unhappy about his landlord, rising costs, advice he’d received from financial and legal advisors - and a spat with someone from Barclays Bank who had upset him which saw him issue a blanket ban on anyone that worked for the global financial institution.

The last time I met Guy a couple of years ago I suggested I could organise a lunch or dinner for his friends and former customers to get together again with him and I have been chasing him to do that ever since.

Last week I was able to discuss the subject properly with him and he pledged to get back to me with dates when he will return to Leeds in the autumn.

He even said he might try and persuade Adriano, who owned The Flying Pizza, to fly in from his home in Tenerife to join us.

Plenty of people contacted me to say they would be interested in coming along to such a gathering and I still have all their details and will be in touch.

Should you be interested, do let me know.

Anyway, back to last week’s lunch.

After so many years since the closure of La Grillade, I was keen to see whether Guy had mellowed and put some of the travails of the past behind him as he enjoys a relaxed retirement.

He looked tanned and fit and enthusiastically updated me about his children, Bertrand, Elodie and Antoine.

His report on his love life was less welcome. Suffice to say, he’s not lonely.

Then Guy pulled out his mobile phone, said: “Did you ever see this letter?” and handed me the phone.

The letter was from someone in the environmental health department at Leeds City Council taking issue with the way that the steak tartare and accompanying raw egg were served at La Grillade.

“How did they expect me to serve steak tartare? It is served raw and so is the egg!” raged Guy.

The letter was dated 2013.

It is nice to know he’s moved on and doesn’t hold grudges.

:::

IT was good to catch up with dealmaker Jonathan Jones this week.

He has been a key player in the Yorkshire corporate finance market for as long as I’ve been reporting on and observing this key sector - which is over a quarter of a century.

Jonathan is stepping down as European managing partner of global law firm Squire Patton Boggs to take up non-executive roles and invest alongside company management teams.

He has worked at the legal firm that used to be known as Hammonds for almost three decades and has spent the last six years as European managing partner with responsibility for the firm’s offices in the UK, Europe and Australia.

During that time the division’s profitability doubled to £100m and turnover grew from £150m to £275m.

We had a coffee this week when Jonathan explained that, at 58, he is keen to use his experience to advise and support businesses in Yorkshire and beyond.

Over his career as a corporate lawyer, Jonathan has advised on more than 300 private equity deals ranging from £5m to nearly £800m in value.

A five-time Yorkshire Legal Dealmaker of the Year, he is ranked in the Legal 500 Hall of Fame and listed as an eminent practitioner in Chambers.

In his career he has acted as trusted advisor to four major private equity houses and their portfolio companies, steering management teams and investors through investments, sales and exits.

“My approach has always been pragmatic, recognising which points are worth arguing about and those which aren’t,” he said. “It’s about getting to the commercial deal that everybody is happy to do.”

Over coffee Jonathan reflected on the many highlights - and some of the challenges - from his legal career.

He says his pragmatic approach was tested to the limit when he sat across the table from the swashbuckling but spiky Peter Smart, the late chairman of rival firm Walker Morris, to negotiate the key points on a big deal.

“In the interests of making sure the deal happened smoothly, I had sent over a list of the key things we wanted to agree ahead of the final negotiations the following day.

“My colleagues and I sat across a long table facing Peter and his team and he pushed a sheet of paper towards me.

“It was the list of the things I wanted to agree on and he had written ‘No’ against each one!” Jonathan laughed.

He will continue to work with Squire Patton Boggs as a senior partner on special projects while taking on non-executive roles and making investments.

He sees opportunities to add value in four main areas: supporting M&A and private equity transactions, advising European and global businesses, contributing to professional services firms, and backing venture capital and scale-up businesses.

Jonathan said: “Across the North of England, there’s a real opportunity to work with early-stage businesses that have, or need, venture capital or angel backing, helping them scale to a point where they’re attractive to private equity and then supporting this journey. That complete journey – from VC stage through PE to exit – is where I believe I can add most value.”

:::

I’VE often wondered why what appear relatively simple infrastructure projects take so long to complete in this country.

Other countries seem to do things so much quicker.

I was once told that in places like China and Dubai, if a job takes 1,000 hours of work to complete, they get 1,000 workers to do it in an hour.

I appreciate that approach is simply not feasible in this country.

But while sitting in the long traffic jams caused by the “upgrade” of Lawnswood roundabout on the Leeds ring road recently, I got a glimpse of why something like this £13m project to install traffic signals, add pedestrian and cycle crossings and reduce speed limits is scheduled to take more than a year to complete.

One of the workers on the project was clearing dust and rubble off one of the traffic lanes.

He was using a large shovel and a wide sweeping brush but from the debris he was clearing and the energy he was putting into it, I think I could have shifted more of the rubble in less time using a toothbrush and a teaspoon.

As Liam Neeson might have said, it takes a certain set of skills to do what he was doing.

And then this week I received an email from a nice man at an outdoor advertising agency in Halifax called Outdo (coincidentally the chairman of the company is Steve Auckland, my old boss at the Yorkshire Post) about a partnership it has with Leeds City Council.

It was offering my firm the opportunity to sponsor a roundabout or verge in Leeds and Wetherby.

Apparently “Each roundabout or verge site you sponsor will exclusively promote your business to up to 1.6 million people per month, using four newly installed, traffic-facing sponsorship signs. As a council-owned platform, this offers a trusted and high-profile way to showcase your business to significant local audiences across Wetherby or the wider Leeds area every month.”

I don’t doubt the effectiveness of this kind of advertising but I’m wondering whether I should channel my marketing budget in a slightly different direction.

Perhaps I could sponsor that lad with the broom and shovel to help improve his productivity levels.

Judging by the energy and initiative he expended when I saw him, I wonder whether he must have spent his apprenticeship working on the seemingly neverending project to “upgrade” the front of Leeds railway station.

Have a great weekend.

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HOW do we achieve growth in the North?

That is the question that local, regional and national politicians of all parties have been seeking to answer for years.

Say what you like about our current Government, but at least Chancellor Rachel Reeves has taken steps to actually try and address the question by appointing former Leeds City Council chief executive Tom Riordan to a newly created role of Northern Growth Envoy.

He’s not party political and unlike many politicians, he actually has credit in the bank from business people for what he has achieved and the manner in which he goes about it.

He engages directly, addresses the tough questions and doesn’t shy away from criticism, which he understands is going to be inevitable when you are in the roles he is in.

Having spent time as the number two civil servant working for Wes Streeting in the Department of Health and Social Care, Tom is five months into his new role working closely with senior government departments, mayors, ministers and other external partners to develop a plan to support growth and investments in the North of England.

Already there has been progress to improve rail services across the north and to accelerate housing and other development projects.

He’s clearly not messing around - and with a direct line into the Chancellor of the Exchequer he’s keen to follow up this early progress by addressing the challenges facing many businesses across the North.

He knows he has got his work cut out but what I like about his approach is that he is keen to engage with as many businesses as possible to find out what they think and what they need to help them grow to deliver wealth and jobs across the North of England.

He has already identified a key target area is small and medium sized firms which form the backbone of the economy.

In Germany they have a name for them – Mittelstand – which literally translates to ‘middle estate’ and takes in companies with common characteristics including family ownership, innovation, a focus on niche markets, and long-term strategies.

They can be traditional manufacturers or hi-tech operators who usually employ up to 500 staff and are known for their focus on exports, commitment to quality, investment in training to help them maintain skilled workforces.

Germany recognises that these SMEs make up around 99% of the nation’s companies and it understands their value to the country’s economy.

It is a sector that has long been ignored by British politicians and credit to Tom Riordan for identifying its value.

I mentioned late last year that Tom asked me to organise a series of regular events where we can bring together those running these types of businesses in the North of England so he can hear from them and identify how the Government can support their plans to grow.

We held the first of these yesterday, bringing together a fascinating group of entrepreneurs and business leaders for a roundtable discussion hosted by accountancy firm AAB in Leeds with the support of Blacks Solicitors and wealth management firm Julius Baer.

The discussion was held under Chatham House rules to enable all the participants to speak freely - and I can assure you that they did.

The businesses that the people around the table run are from a wide variety of sectors and locations in Yorkshire.

But what all had in common was that they want to grow, they want to employ people and they want the wider region and the country as a whole to prosper.

Their frustrations - which were often vented with Yorkshire bluntness - were not with tax hikes on their own income and wealth, but a fiscal approach by the Government that is deterring them from growing their businesses through acquisitions or investment and the growing cost of employing people.

Tom listened intently and assured everyone there that what they said would be heard at the highest level of government.

What struck me most was that despite all the challenges they face, these entrepreneurs are great optimists.

They love what they do, they love their staff and they appreciate that there are plenty of good things about this country that make it a great place to live.

The participants were guests of mine and those invited by James Hunt of AAB, Chris Allen of Blacks Solicitors and Charlie Hague of Julius Baer.

Given that all of the attendees were articulate, engaging, straight-talking and entertaining, my role in facilitating the discussion was hardly a challenge.

Although I did add value when one of the guests, a property entrepreneur, talked about how some young people today are less attracted to work and prefer being on the ‘Nat King Cole’.

I was able to explain to younger members of the group that that was rhyming slang for ‘on the dole’.

Once the event was over I found myself on my Jack Jones and so got a Joe Baksi home.

:::

I CAME a distant third in a name-dropping contest this week - and there were only three of us taking part.

Mind you, I was up against two business veterans who have enough experiences and contacts to leave me trailing in their wake.

I was invited to lunch with former marketeer turned headhunter turned dealmaker Jonny Hick and sporting and business titan Sir Rodney Walker.

To show you how out of my depth I was, I was only able to mention Arnold Schwarzenegger once. A crying shame.

Reflecting on my blog last week, when I mentioned the passing of former Northern Foods boss Lord Haskins, Jonny told me that Chris Haskins and his father-in-law Alec Horsley were family friends of the Hicks in Hull.

“I knew Chris very well in those days. His daughter Gina was at school with me.

“His father-in-law Alec Horsley was my No1 mentor in those days. The phone would randomly ring mid week and my father would answer: ‘Peter - Alec here. Jim Callaghan is due in half an hour. Susan’s preparing some nibbles. Bring Jonny round now!’

“It was almost weekly,” recalled Jonny, ‘Michael Foot’s here…Michael York’s here…Susannah York’s here…Jimmy Boyle’s here…Marcus Sieff’s here…John Sainsbury’s here…John Smith’s here…Julie Christie’s here.’

“My favourite phone call was…’Peter - we’ve just bought Fox’s Biscuits - bring Jonny round now!’

“It’s still my favourite biscuit!”

Jonny and Sir Rodney have been friends for many years and I know Jonny has put him into chairman roles in several companies to compliment his roles in sports administration.

Over the years he has been the chairman of Wembley Stadium, Leicester City, the London Marathon, the Rugby Football League, the British Basketball League, the Sports Council and the World Snooker Association before Barry Hearn.

Having just celebrated his 83rd birthday, Sir Rodney is still active in business, but when asked what he is most proud of in his career, he says it is leading the £750,000 campaign to reopen the Theatre Royal and Opera House in Wakefield, his home city.

Given his deep experience and many achievements I was flattered when Sir Rodney turned to me and said: “David, I did mean to call you after reading one of your blogs.”

I wondered which of my many erudite correspondence he was referring to.

“It was your piece about the passing of Simon Rigby (the late entrepreneur who was the founder of the stock market quoted company Freedom Group), you didn’t mention I was his chairman,” said Sir Rodney sternly.

I realised that if I can’t drop the name of a name dropper into my blog, then I’ve got no chance of winning any contests.

:::

FAREWELL then Nigel Foster.

It was reported this week that the businessman who was a passionate advocate and ambassador for his home city of Leeds and Yorkshire has died aged just 67.

He spent his career working in private and public sector transport organisations and was one of the truly nice guys on the regional business scene.

His great friend Shaun Watts - both were presidents of Leeds and North Yorkshire chambers of commerce - told me that in his view Nigel was one of the unsung heroes of Yorkshire.

Whenever I met Nigel I found him cheerful, enthusiastic, challenging and entertaining and always great company.

He achieved so much and was a good man to boot.

He’ll be missed.

:::

WHEN it comes to entertainment, I much prefer sipping a Negroni in an elegant cocktail bar rather than jigging about at a gig getting beer chucked over me in the mosh pit.

So I pushed myself well out of my comfort zone when attended the recent concert by pop band James at Leeds Arena.

Well I say I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, I had been invited to the gig in an executive box as a guest of the Reward Funding founder Dave Jones.

Dave bid for the box in a charity auction at the Crypt Factor last June and I was also on the table at that event.

“Parki (he always spells it like that in his texts to me) I won’t forget you! When I choose the gig, you are coming!” shouted Dave on the night.

Given he’s a large, and larger than life individual, when he invited me to join him to watch James at the arena earlier this month, I accepted without hesitation.

Dave was keen to point out he’d paid his own money for the box and the guests were some of his oldest friends stretching right back to his formative days working for Yorkshire Bank in Doncaster.

It was a fun evening with great people and I even recognised three of James’ songs.

I also didn’t realise that lead singer Tim Booth was born in Bradford and grew up in Boston Spa in Yorkshire.

The support act was Manchester rock band Doves.

They have apparently released six albums in the last 25 years.

I have to admit that I didn’t recognise one of their songs.

Now if it had been Barry Manilow…

Have a great weekend.

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This photo has no relevance to today’s blog, but I took it on a dog walk yesterday evening and though you might appreciate it.

SINCE my last blog before Easter I have read news of the deaths of three people I was fortunate enough to meet and interview during my journalistic career.

Lord Chris Haskins, who has died aged 88, was the outspoken Irishman who transformed a Yorkshire dairy firm into one of Britain’s biggest food makers, Northern Foods, the pioneer of ready meals.

He was awarded a peerage by Tony Blair and took on various tough roles for the government and was long a doughty champion for Hull and East Yorkshire, where he lived on a farm.

Lord Haskins was always good value to interview and not afraid to speak his mind or challenge the establishment in a way you might expect of someone who had been a teenage campaigner for CND.

He was a successful businessman who also believed in public service, a quality that should always be treasured.

:::

ROBERT Powls is another prominent businessman who has also passed away recently at the age of 79.

You may never have heard of him, but you will know the products this Halifax-born former hairdresser created - ghd hair straightening irons, enabling women everywhere to style their hair like Hollywood stars Jennifer Aniston and Gwyneth Paltrow.

After he left the company he founded another successful hair products brand called Cloud Nine.

I interviewed Robert when I was at TheBusinessDesk.com back in 2008 and the story was headlined: ‘The forgotten founder of ghd’.

He was then living in some luxury on a yacht in the South of France having walked away with £15m after a buyout of ghd two years before.

The quietly-spoken Powls was prompted to speak to me because he was clearly irked by ghd.

Not the fact that the company went on to be sold for a reported £160m by his former business partner, the late Martin Penney, but that Powls’ involvement in the launch of ghd seemed to have been air-brushed from its history.

He vividly recalled how he came up with the concept for ghd.

When an American friend visited his Ilkley home in 1999 he told him of a new hair straightening iron that he had developed which was different to anything previously sold.

“I got a prototype and did my wife Susan’s hair with it and the next morning she came downstairs and said ‘I’m having a really good hair day today’.

That was how we came up with the name, but because it wouldn’t fit on the box it became ghd,” remembers Powls.

Powls found a supplier in Korea that could produce the styling irons and set up his business from home.

“It started in my kitchen in Ilkley, we had eight ladies from Addingham stuffing English instructions in the boxes that came from Korea. We had products all over the house. The one room that didn’t have irons in was my bedroom!”

Powls admits that ghd irons did not become an overnight success.

For him the point when things started to take off was after he took to the streets of London’s West End to show off his design to hairdresser friends and contacts.

“I was in a salon and the beauty editor of the Evening Standard was there and I demonstrated the irons to her and she almost burst into tears and said: ‘I have never been able to do my hair like this’.

“She gave us a a half-page write-up two days later and from that point we didn’t have enough products to satisfy demand. In the first year our sales were half a million quid.”

Sales continued to grow, but Powls had decided not to do a deal with a high street retailer to sell his products – despite Boots clamouring for them.

Instead he sold them through hair salons.

That move ensured two things – that ghd was seen to have hairstylists’ seal of approval and so made the price tag of £80-plus appeared more justified.

It was a bold gamble, as Powls readily admits.

“When I talk to friends in the trade they credit me with changing the attitude of hairdressers to the way they sold retail products. Prior to that it was £5 shampoos [being sold in salons].”

Despite the success of the business, it was still based at his Ilkley home.

“The number on the box was my home telephone number. [Opera singer] Lesley Garrett rang from America at 2am and said she wanted some of our irons!”

:::

FAREWELL also to Geoff Burrow, father of the late rugby league player and MND campaigner Rob Burrow.

Geoff passed away last month aged just 74 after a short illness.

It was particularly cruel because Geoff and his wife Irene had cared, supported and campaigned with their son Rob after his diagnosis with Motor Neurone Disease at the age of 37.

But Geoff’s legacy should not just be this.

He was branch secretary of the GMB union’s Sports Section, representing former rugby league players, coaches and support staff as well as former boxers.

I chaired a roundtable discussion at Sheffield Hallam University on the business of sport when I was at TheBusinessDesk and Geoff was one of the panellists.

He was quietly spoken and didn’t dominate the conversation but I got a glimpse of what this caring but deeply determined and doughty champion of former sports people was like.

It was those qualities that sustained him, I’m sure, when he stood alongside Rob to face the cruel challenges of MND.

:::

WHEN Arnold Schwarzenegger returned to Belfast to receive a special honour from the city which he first visited 60 years ago as a young man, the headlines were probably inevitable.

“He’s back!” were the words topping reports about the figure who went from champion bodybuilder to Hollywood leading man to governor of California.

Arnie was back in Northern Ireland last month to receive an honorary degree from Ulster University.

Remembering his first trip to Belfast in 1966, the man who can now call himself Dr Schwarzenegger, said it was a “breakthrough” moment for him as it was the first time he had been invited to speak in public.

The Austrian-born film star said he could not speak English at the time and “nearly fainted” when he was asked to address the crowd at a bodybuilding competition.

He recalled that he managed to mutter a few words with the help of his host and was thrilled to receive a standing ovation from the crowd for his efforts.

“What happened that day in Belfast was so important to me because every single time afterwards when I won a competition I went to the microphone.

“Each time I said more and more and more and eventually they couldn’t shut me up, I love talking so much in public.”

Little did that 19-year-old young man know that those few words he muttered that day would provide the springboard to a career as the leading man in blockbuster films and twice becoming the governor of the biggest state in America.

Today, aged 78 but still looking like a chiseled Austrian oak, Arnie is an articulate and passionate advocate of human rights, environmental issues and the arts in an America which appears to be becoming increasingly dystopian.

Well done to Arnold Schwarzenegger for his honorary doctorate in Belfast, but I can’t help thinking that perhaps one of the three universities in Leeds has missed a trick here.

When I interviewed Arnie after he became governor of California he vividly described a visit he made to Leeds to compete in a bodybuilding competition at the Queens Hotel when he was a young man.

And he recalled how his first inspiration and later mentor was Leeds-born Reg Park, who went from playing in the reserves for Leeds United as a teenager to become Mr Britain in 1949 and thrice Mr Universe in 1951, 1958 and 1965 and went on to feature in five films, mainly playing Hercules in low budget Italian-made movies in the 1960s - the classical mythology equivalent of Spaghetti Westerns, but with the Stetsons and six-shooters swapped for swords and sandals.

Is it too late to get Arnie to return to Yorkshire to receive an honour?

Perhaps Ulster University has stolen the thunder here.

And the Belfast Telegraph newspaper was able to dust off a famous photograph from its archives, taken by Roy Smyth of the big man’s first visit to Northern Ireland in 1966 when he posed with local ladies Sandra Burrows and Deirdre Cullen.

Photo credit: Roy Smyth, Belfast Telegraph.

Ulster University managed to reunite Arnie with Sandra when they invited her to his awards ceremony.

Perhaps the Leeds universities should wait until the work is completed around the front of the city’s railway station before they invite Arnie to return to pose for a photo in front of the Queen’s Hotel.

At least it gives them about a decade to make plans for the event.

Have a great weekend.

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I’VE got a new line for my CV.

Apparently my interviewing skills are a cross between Michael Parkinson and Graham Norton.

That was how I was introduced by Julian Pitts, the national managing partner of BTG Begbies Traynor at a dinner to celebrate the achievements of the Greens 2 Blue rowing crew on successfully crossing the Atlantic.

Begbies, as most people refer to the firm, has had a recent rebrand and was the main sponsor for David Knaggs and Richard Larking’s epic 3,000 mile ocean row from the Canary Islands to Antigua.

Not only did they complete the feat in 46 days - starting in December and finishing before the end of January - but they have raised a phenomenal amount for two great charities, Maggie’s Yorkshire and the Friends of Alfie Martin.

Last week’s celebration dinner put on by BTG at Bowcliffe Hall raised £14,000 towards their total, which is now £220,000 and which has been split between the two charities.

Julian, who hosted the dinner for 85 people from the Yorkshire insolvency, finance and property sectors, asked if I would do a question and answer session with Richard and David after dinner.

After an emotional video charting their journey, the three of us settled onto our stools at the front of the room and I told the audience that I too had done some rowing in my time.

“But I don’t go on about it…”

The Q&A covered plenty of subjects including one question asked by a member of the audience which I’m sure everyone there was thinking: how did you go to the toilet?

Cue a rather enthusiastic and graphic description by David of how to hover over a bucket mid-ocean.

I was concerned that a video interview I did with the boys before they set off might have splintered their camaraderie.

I asked them to describe the other in one word.

David said Richard was “dependable”.

Richard said David was “clumsy”.

But they told the audience that the bond between them was strong enough to withstand something like that.

It was good to see Dave Irwin and his colleagues from corporate finance firm Sentio at the dinner.

Sentio had sponsored the oars of Greens 2 Blue and organised a rowing challenge for charity in their Leeds office.

They also plan to mount one of the oars on the office wall to celebrate the achievement.

I asked Richard and David about what wildlife they had seen during their 46 days on the ocean.

Other than one seabird, a pod of dolphins in the distance and a Chinese fishing boat that was about it.

“Other than flying fish, loads of flying fish,” said David.

“You would be rowing in the middle of the night and suddenly you would be smacked round the face by a flying fish which had jumped out of the sea and across the boat. And because they were so slippery we would struggle to pick them up and throw them back while we were rowing.

“So we would end up filling a bucket with them,” he recalled.

I told the Sentio team that they had a bucket of flying fish being shipped to them along with the oar to display.

And the toilet bucket, if they are lucky.

:::

ONE question I asked Richard and David was whether the row had profoundly changed them.

David said candidly that having focused on preparing for, training for and then doing the row for the last three years, he was never going to put himself first again ahead of his wife Jackie and two daughters.

“In fact, when I finished the row one of my friends told me that he had included me on a trip to the cricket in South Africa at New Year and the flight was on New Year’s Eve.

“I said I couldn’t fly on that day because I had been away from the girls last Christmas and New Year,” said David.

There was silence as the room took in this very personal and emotional admission.

I then asked them what they were now looking forward to following their epic adventure.

Quick as a flash, Richard lifted his microphone, paused and then said: “Well, I’m really looking forward to a nice trip to the cricket in South Africa at New Year, apparently they’ve got a spare place…”

:::

THE event raised a fantastic £14,000 for charity thanks to the efforts of Julian Pitts and his colleagues collecting dozens of prizes for the raffle and silent auction.

I sat next to Lindsay Austin who runs The Bayford Group and Bowcliffe Hall - she kindly took the photograph above.

Lindsay successfully bid for tickets to England’s rugby match against Japan at Twickenham in November and she also was the highest bidder for a made-to-measure jacket donated by Harrogate tailoring house Rhodes Wood which she is going to give to Bayford chairman Jonathan Turner.

The raffle featured 25 prizes which ranged from games of golf at Alwoodley Golf Club with Julian and his colleague Nick Reed, bottles of champagne, wine and whisky, a Betty’s gift box, a £100 restaurant voucher and a tour of a whisky distillery.

I was delighted to discover that of the three raffle tickets I bought for £50, two were winners!

I now proudly possess a voucher for a suit to be cleaned at Harrogate Drycleaners and a tote bag with a selection of newly branded BTG merchandise.

There is a water bottle, a stress ball, a notebook and pen and a mini umbrella.

It is money can’t buy ‘merch’ as the youngies say.

:::

AFTER the BTG dinner last Thursday it was up at cock’s crow on Friday morning to drive to Scotland for the weekend.

The trip, long in the planning, was for a lunch group I’m part of known as ‘The Colourful People’.

I believe the name derives from our choice of clothing rather than our flamboyant lifestyles or opinions.

Among the members of said group are the rower Richard Larking and textile entrepreneur David Whitehead whose 100-year-old family firm specialises in ‘finishing’ fabrics, including those used to make the iconic Burberry trench coats.

David owns a castle in Scotland and invited our lunch group - whose members include former Welcome to Yorkshire director Peter Dodd, accountant David “Kenny Rogers” Richmond and former MP and sports and prisons minister Gerry Sutcliffe - to join him there for a weekend.

Given the invitation was issued last year prior to Richard setting off on his Atlantic Row, David Whitehead said the weekend would be the perfect opportunity to either celebrate his achievement or if he didn’t make it, raise a glass to his passing.

Some said this suggestion that Richard might not make it was rather bleak.

Given I don’t get many invitations to stay in a castle, I decided I would go anyway, whatever happened to him.

Fortunately he did make it.

But our host didn’t.

David Whitehead was ill with pneumonia so unable to join us.

However rather than just sending a Whatsapp message with the news, David got his cousin to join us.

As we sat around chatting and wondering where our host was, his cousin Hazel, with something of a theatrical flourish, brought out a tall candle holder with a laminated photograph of David’s head on it as well as a coat hanger with one of his trademark tweed jackets.

She then proceeded to read out a message he had written to us all explaining and apologising for his absence.

Now I don’t watch the programme, but my wife said it all had a feel of the hit BBC TV show The Traitors which is set in a Scottish castle.

While we missed David’s always wonderful company, we made the most of our weekend in Barcaldine Castle, built in 1609 by “Black” Duncan Campbell and restored in 1897 by Sir Duncan Campbell 3rd Baronet of Barcaldine.

The castle, set on the shores of Loch Creran, has six bedrooms with four-poster beds and is said to be one of the most haunted buildings in Scotland.

I didn’t see any spirits while I was there - well only negronis - but we walked along the shores of the loch, ate freshly caught seafood in the harbour at Oban and feasted on breakfasts of porridge, haggis and black pudding in the wood panelled castle dining room with a log fire roaring in its huge stone fireplace.

It was a magical weekend which all of us insist we must repeat when mine host David Whitehead is fully recovered.

Well it is only right.

The castle is available to book for groups or the bedrooms can be booked individually.

https://barcaldinecastle.co.uk/

:::

ANY concern that the regional press has succumbed to a dumbing down approach was dispelled in an email I received from the Yorkshire Post this week.

The email subject was titled: ‘Best picture special’.

Inside the top headline was: ‘13 pictures as excited fans get the chance to meet Jane McDonald at HMV Wakefield’.

I’m just sorry I missed it.

I was at a Cilla Black drag act tribute night.

It was a lorra, lorra fun.

Have a great weekend.

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