Author name: David Parkin

REGULAR readers of this blog will have deduced that my taste in music is rather “retro”. In fact I don’t like anything that was recorded post circa 1963. Actually, that’s a lie. There have been a few modern classics that have piqued my interest in recent years by all time classic artists such as Atomic […]

IT was only a matter of time. Bodybuilding legend, huge Hollywood film star and former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger acknowledging the man who made him what he is today. I’m indebted to Huddersfield entrepreneur Andy Needham (who, like Arnold, is an imposing man of sculpted physique) for sending over the image above. Actually it’s

I ALWAYS knew I was destined for great things. And this week I became a Mayor. OK, it was only for an hour and I was in charge of a fictional town called Farefield, but I think I was born to lead. I was drafted into my role at a Young Managers’ Network conference I

LAWYERS are often portrayed as being dull, boring and risk averse. I’m lucky that none of the ones I know fall into that category. And if you wanted an antidote to that stereotype, then Tim Wheldon was it. Tim, who has died at the far too young age of 64, was a legal titan and

DO you know which word was picked as the word of the year for 2022? ‘Permacrisis’. Yes, according to Collins Dictionary, permacrisis – a word describing the feeling of living through a period of war, inflation and political instability – was its word of the year. That was highlighted by Louise Vaughan, one of the

IT’S a small world. The reality of that struck home several times following last week’s blog. I mentioned that on a recent trip to Yorkshire’s county cricket match at Scarborough I sat next to former York businessman turned vicar Michael Sinclair in a marquee that included big names from Yorkshire cricket including Sir Geoffrey Boycott

NOW here’s a funny thing. I went to Scarborough the other day. No, that’s not the funny bit. What’s funny is that my wife and I left the house at the same time on Tuesday morning and she got to London, which is 200 miles from Leeds, two hours before I got to Scarborough, which

AS challenges go, it is likely to be slightly harder than completing a leisurely round of golf. Golfing pals David Knaggs and Richard Larking have set themselves the formidable goal of rowing 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean. It hasn’t been dubbed “the World’s Toughest Row” for nothing. David and Richard, two Leeds-based lawyers who were introduced

“I FELT I had to do this because shouting at the telly every night didn’t seem to work.” That’s how businessman Nick Palmer explains his decision to stand as an independent candidate in next week’s by-election in Selby and Ainsty. The vote was triggered when the constituency’s Conservative MP Nigel Adams, a Boris Johnson loyalist,

FAREWELL then, Lord Bob Kerslake. The career civil servant, who has died of cancer aged just 68, held roles including Head of the Civil Service, Permanent Secretary for the Department for Communities and Local Government and chief executive of the Homes and Communities Agency, the national housing and regeneration agency for England. It was in