Author name: David Parkin

ESCAPE rooms are an increasingly popular activity for groups of work colleague and friends. But I’ve got an alternative for you. Try getting into one of the many Ivy Brasserie restaurants that seem to have sprung up like knotweed around the UK over the past 12 months. If you do manage to get through the […]

WHEN four burly blokes surround you and ask you to do a job for them it is difficult to decline. Fortunately they are a quartet of top men who are aiming to break the world record for rowing across the Atlantic and they want some help with a charity dinner then the decision to say

DONALD Trump might be threatening to take a sledgehammer to many of the United States’ foreign trade agreements but that shouldn’t mask the huge opportunity that British firms have to do business with America. With Brexit looming, there is a renewed enthusiasm on both sides of the Atlantic to build new trading relationships. One such

I’VE long held the view that the Firecracker Ball is the hottest ticket in the Yorkshire business and social calendar. So when Martha Phillips from the Firecracker Ball committee rang to ask if I would be interested in being media partner for this year’s event I didn’t hesitate to say yes. The annual event, which

TO Hull and Back. That was the name of the Only Fools and Horses Christmas special way back in 1985. I remember watching it on my new portable colour TV in my bedroom right after the Queen’s Speech on Christmas Day. It was the first feature-length episode of the sitcom and so wasn’t accompanied by

UNSUNG heroes. It’s a strange phrase. I’ve always loved unearthing the unsung heroes of business. You know, the entrepreneurs who have created something special but also wanted to put something back. But by highlighting their achievements doesn’t that mean that they are no longer unsung? That might be the case but many still remain relatively

“ARE you taking your Ferraro Rocher?” I was asked when I told a friend I was off to watch the finish of the Tour de France  on the Champs-Elysées, preceded by a drinks reception on the lawn of the British Embassy in Paris. “No, we’re flying to Paris and anyway, I can’t afford a Ferrari,”

FORGIVE the self-indulgence in including yet another photograph of me in this blog. But given I wrote about attire in the workplace last week at least the above shot proves that I don’t always go to work in a suit or dinner jacket. This was me compering a recent event we worked on for broadcasting

YOU know you’re at the Great Yorkshire Show when you patiently wait for a pack of beagles to cross the road in front of you and walk contentedly around a barn staring at prize-winning rabbits (the English Spot is like Thumper crossed with Perdita from 101 Dalmatians). Having failed to get a VIP car parking

LAST weekend was spent in Norway, a country I had never been to before. If that Scandinavian nation which isn’t in the European Union is what Britain can be like post Brexit, then I’m all for it. Blue skies, sparkling fjords, bright-eyed smiling people and it doesn’t get dark until gone midnight. Wasn’t that the