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Wizard – we hope – of Oz

Monday 7th September 2020

I had no idea that Sir Ian McKellen was an expert on matters of trade. I’d always assumed that as far as his particular trade is concerned he had an agent to take care of it. Be that as it may, another media person who has unlikely claims to understand international export and import markets, the producer behind Dr Who is also expressing reservations about the appointment of an Aussie ex-PM to be a UK trade envoy. They are both signatories of an ‘Open Letter to Government’ in protest that a person from the Antipodes is being allowed into the…

We are family

Thursday 13th August 2020

So, farewell then Sumner Redstone – a true media mogul, and you don’t get a lot of those these days. Nick Ferrari and I were in memory lane on his LBC Breakfast Show. Mr R used to swim naked every day and surround himself with beautiful women. He died at 97. Must get a pool. Mr F reminded me that Mr R, by the time he was devoid of the ability to speak, had an i-Pad with three indicators on it – ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Please leave’ – or words to that effect. A story of wonderful copy..the buccaneering business…

It’s not working

Monday 27th July 2020

This from the FT : ‘managers at Credit Suisse and Citigroup are struggling to persuade some senior traders to come back over the summer because they’ve become too comfortable working from their homes in Surrey or the South of France.’ Well of course they have. What would you prefer – crushing onto the tube to Canary Wharf or having a gentle stroll to the patisserie with the laptop next to a nice cafe au lait? No contest. Their bosses, of course, are none too happy since these lucky people are not within easy reach, and might be also enjoying themselves….

Oh what a tangled web

Friday 3rd July 2020

I’d been lazy and I’d let the usual blogging slip. So it wasn’t until one of my friends tried to get on my website that I realised there was something wrong. It turned out that not only had my web ‘host ‘failed to renew but the software behind the website needed an upgrade. Two days of fault finding with the web host and the very patient help of the original web designer, fixed it. Overall I’d felt fairly stupid – I’m not technical, but that’s no excuse. These days you’ve got to be online. In fact on my JazzFM business…

At last – no worries re Covid19

Wednesday 1st July 2020

I mentioned this a few weeks ago. It’s growing. There’s a grey area about who was insured for what from the pandemic. It seems to be fairly straightforward – the insurers will fight to make sure they don’t suffer another BP Deepwater cash dispenser, and the victims will pursue every wrinkle in the blame game. Lawyers are rooting deep within the ts and cs of the tiny print subsidiary paragraphs of company insurance policies to see if there’s a ‘Blimey, there’s pandemic’ section which might help those businesses which have had to close down, to claim their losses. I said…