October 2020

LET’S start with some good news. It was announced this week that the former chairman and chief executive of technology giant 3M has been named as the new chancellor of my alma mater the University of Huddersfield. Sir George Buckley gained a BSc in electrical and electronic engineering from the university in 1972 and went […]

FAREWELL then Harry Gration. The BBC veteran departed the Look North studio stage left this week after a 42-year career with Auntie. I’m never sure what qualifies someone to be described as a “legend”. I suppose over four decades as a thoroughly nice bloke on the telly must qualify. Mind you, I think becoming a

HERE’S one for you. Who is the rudest restaurateur you have ever encountered? When it comes to Leeds, some might say up until the closure of La Grillade a few years ago, it was an easy choice. But even the irascible Gallic patron of the Wellington Street institution that operated for more than three decades

UP to a couple of days ago, if you had asked me what links I had to the world of organised crime and money laundering, I’d have said watching Goodfellas and McMafia on television. But that was before headlines splashed across the national news this week about a Leeds businessman accused of being a “serial

IF you think you’ve seen the pose above before, then you are right. Kays catalogue circa 1986. I was always struck by some of the nonchalant stances struck by models for the glossy chunky tome that used to drop onto the doormat twice a year. And I’m not talking about the women’s lingerie section. No,