Author name: David Parkin

THEY used to say that you know you are getting older when policemen start looking younger. My measure of the ageing process was always slightly different. Going into business journalism in my late 20s, everyone I met and interviewed seemed much older than me. I don’t know whether that gave me too much of a

WHAT makes a city attractive? A vibrant economy, varied retailers, thriving arts scene, great public spaces. We all have our favourites cities around the world and we have our individual reasons for choosing them. But in the majority of cases it is because those cities combine the attractions above – along with lots more –

IS it just me or does it seem a little bit ironic that the nation that has never really embraced football (or ‘soccer’ as US prosecutors referred to it this week) has been the one to investigate and expose corruption within the sport? The arrest of seven high-ranking FIFA officials brought out into the open

A TRIP to York Races is one of the great pleasures of the Yorkshire sporting calendar. Last week’s first meeting of the year, the Dante, is always popular and attracts high quality fields, but not the overwhelming crowds of the Ebor Festival in August. Surveying the carnage across the champagne lawn at the end of

WHEN Julian Pitts asked me to host an Election Breakfast that Begbies Traynor were holding the morning after the vote, I initially wondered whether we would have much to talk about. Several weeks out from the election, even several hours from it, all the pollsters and media and even politicians were predicting a hung parliament.

DID you watch the Tour de Yorkshire last weekend? Race organisers Welcome to Yorkshire were again fortunate with the weather. Last July they had cracking weather for the Tour de France Grand Depart. The chances of the skies being blue for a bank holiday weekend at the start of May were altogether lower. But Welcome

DID you see that Dalton Philips walked away from his role as chief executive of Morrisons with pay and bonuses of around £3m? That must have been why he accepted, what looked at the time, to be an ignominious sacking by new chairman Andy Higginson, in January. There was very little self-justification from Philips on

HAVE a nice day! There was a time when this American phrase used to annoy most Brits. I don’t think it ever caught on and became well used in this country, but it did highlight Americans’ approach to customer service. Given the shoddy approach to service that you get from many people working in retail

AS the early morning sun rises majestically over my neighbour’s loft conversion, leaving the wheelie bins dappled in a warm, amber glow, one’s thoughts turn, inevitably to spring. We all have our own favourite ways of celebrating the arrival of this most hopeful of seasons. Whether it is the rows of daffodils in the park,