IN just a week’s time, David Knaggs and Richard Larking will set off across the Atlantic Ocean on what is known as The World’s Toughest Row.
And that definitely isn’t an exaggeration.
The pair of lawyers, who are more used to the golf course than the high seas, will row 3,000 miles from La Gomera in the Canary Islands to Antigua in the West Indies.
Greens2Blue as they are known (do you see the clever combination of golf and ocean rowing in the name?) will spend several weeks on their intrepid adventure rowing in two hour intervals and fitting eating, sleeping, maintenance and communications into their two-hour down time.
Through a combination of gentle persuasion, charm and bluster I’ve managed to join the impressive roster of sponsors who are supporting Greens2Blue.
The boys liked the idea of having a crisis communications and reputation management business called CalmStorm Advisory supporting them and my business partner Claire Holt and I loved the opportunity to throw our support behind their incredible efforts which has already raised more than £160,000 for two charities – Maggie’s Yorkshire and The Friends of Alfie Martin.
Having our name alongside blue chip operators like headline sponsor Begbies Traynor Group and oar sponsor Sentio Partners is really great.
As part of the sponsorship I’ve done some video interviews with David and Richard which will be released on social media during the row, which starts next week.
We had some fun with the videos but neither of them has under-estimated the enormity of their challenge and their preparation – which started more than two years ago – has been intense.
I’m overwhelmed with pride to know them and I, like so many of their supporters, will be following their efforts on an app for The World’s Toughest Row.
The only downside is that they won’t be there for our annual Michelsberg Lunch Club Christmas gathering at Sous le Nez.
And in respect to the pair, tailor James Michelsberg and I are postponing this festive get-together until March when they return from the row.
For more information and to support their efforts
https://www.greens2blue.co.uk/
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IT has been a good end to the year on the media training front with recent assignments with really interesting people.
I know that former BBC journalist Simon Hare and I can deliver an exciting and engaging session but we have also come away from them having learned a great deal too.
I’m definitely now more clued up on employment law thanks to one client.
Yesterday we delivered a morning training session for solicitors at niche employment law firm Robinson Ralph.
They were lively, fun and enthusiastic – not something you can say about every lawyer – and the media and presenting insights we gave them will compliment their deep knowledge of employment law and no-nonsense approach to advising the businesses who are their clients.
Juliet Ralph from the firm posted this lovely testimonial on Linkedin: “This morning the management team at Robinson Ralph took part in a brilliant media training session with David Parkin and Simon Hare and it was exactly what we needed.
It was engaging, practical, and packed with insight. We covered everything from maintaining eyeline and body language to sharpening our messages… there were certainly a few lightbulb moments along the way.
It was one of those sessions where you walk out feeling more confident, more prepared, and with a clear sense of how we can use media opportunities to tell our story even better.
We all learnt a lot, and we’re looking forward to putting it into practice.”
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MY recent mention of being mistaken for the multi-millionaire Yorkshire transport tycoon Steve Parkin by one of the staff in the Flying Pizza brought this response from long-serving restaurant manager Angelo Piazzi: “Good for you that I wasn’t working that day, otherwise your brief illusion of being a multimillionaire would have never materialised David .”
Thanks Angelo. I realise that there is no chance of me getting a big serving of complimentary tomato garlic bread and limoncellos when you are there!
A popular figure on the Yorkshire restaurant scene for four decades, Angelo now works a couple of days a week at the Flying Pizza and San Carlo in Leeds city centre.
“Two days week is good enough for me, it gives me time to walk my dog and cook a good dinner for my wonderful hard working wife,” Angelo told me.
“I love my job and the opportunity of meeting the wonderful people that I have been around for 41 years and counting he reflected.
“I am Italian but also an acquired Yorkshireman and proud of it. I came to learn the language and I fell in love with my wife first and the beauty of this region. I consider myself blessed,” said Angelo.
And Yorkshire has been blessed to have you here Angelo.
The highest compliment I can pay him is that even feisty French restaurateur Guy Martin-Laval liked Angelo.
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The Business of Yorkshire conference held in Leeds by TheBusinessDesk.com this week was a quality event with plenty of good speakers.
And West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin.
The highlight for me was Vincent Hodder, the chief executive of Leeds Bradford Airport.
Hodder is a tough, blunt but engaging individual who is leading a project to invest £200m into the airport to improve the facilities and increase passenger numbers to seven million by 2030.
You could sense his frustration that the development of this massive infrastructure project has been hindered by complacency at a national and local government level.
“Nobody has spent any significant sums on this airport for over 20 years,” he said.
In fact Hodder admitted that this £200m investment of private money will be worth more like £150m “because of increased business rates, employment costs, inflation and infrastructure costs”.
“That’s the reality of the current situation,” he told the audience.
“It is frightening how difficult it is to develop new infrastructure in this country,” he said, illustrating the point by saying that the airport signed contracts for new passport e-gates two years ago but won’t get them until 2027 because of drawn out government contracting processes.
The airport has also been attempting since 2018 to get a station built nearby which is plugged into the local railway network.
I was under the impression it was all agreed but Hodder admitted it isn’t yet.
After five years running Leeds Bradford Airport, he said: “I remain committed – but tired – to deliver it!”
A panel discussion on transport which followed his speech included someone else involved in getting another station built in Leeds.
David Aspin of property group Munroe K which owns the White Rose Office Park in Leeds has been working on a public-private project to build a railway station since 2017.
That one is a bit closer to getting delivered but it does highlight the painfully slow approach to delivering infrastructure projects in this country.
David also said he was behind another key transport project for the city – a tram system, championed by West Yorkshire Mayor Tracy Brabin.
“We are very much a supporter of Tracy’s Tram – ‘TT’!”
And I’ve found a photo of what it might look like.
I SAT next to corporate financier and dealmaker Tom Bottomley at the conference and he was telling me that he is a huge fan of artificial intelligence (AI).
He has a daily relationship with ChatGPT – which he assured me is purely platonic – and showed me a fun example of what kind of things it can do.
Tom typed this request into ChatGPT: “I am at a conference and sitting next to David Parkin, the world (well, Yorkshire) famous former journalist and latterly compere and writer. What would you ask him – something that might be quite a cheeky (but hopefully amusing) question?”
While I was still contemplating whether I do have global reach, his AI bot was coming up with the following suggestions:
“Be honest – how long does it take you to come up with those one-liners, or do they just arrive fully formed like divine inspiration?”
“If you were writing a column about today, which one of us would you describe as ‘colourful’, and which of us would you quietly avoid mentioning?”
“Who’s the most interesting person you’ve ever interviewed… and who was the most painfully dull ‘but you still had to write something nice’ about?”
But Tom was keen to probe for questions that were more specific and after a few iterations, AI came up with the following:
“I poked around public sources on David Parkin – and although there are a few amusing anecdotes and blog posts, there’s no obvious “viral embarrassment” from the past year that’s well-documented, so it’s hard to pinpoint a single “famous gaffe”.
Well, that’s a relief.
But the depth of information it can access is incredible.
It came up with the following points:
- He recently wrote a blog entitled “I reckon I’m the first person … to wear a suit and tie to compere one of its events” – referring to a tech-industry event where casual attire is the norm
- In another post (“David Parkin gets his doppelganger out”) he recounts a moment when someone said that Arnold Schwarzenegger should play him in a Hollywood movie — a self-deprecating, tongue-in-cheek anecdote about being mistaken for a beefcake action icon
- He has described events where “wheelie-case-wielding property professionals” stride into major conferences — apparently with a certain comic disdain
So from that, ChatGPT deduced that it would be worth asking the following questions:
- “David — in that blog you said you were possibly the first to rock up in a suit-and-tie at a Leeds Digital Festival. Did you immediately regret it – or secretly enjoy being the most overdressed guy in a sea of hoodies?”
Refers directly to his “suit and tie at Leeds Digital Festival” anecdote.
- “So, about that Schwarzenegger doppelgänger comment — given that someone thinks Arnie should play you in a movie, what’s your Oscar category: Best Supporting MC or Best Leading Man in a business conference thriller?”
Plays off his “doppelganger” story for laughs.
- “If you had to pick — which is worse: being the over-suited MC at a laid-back tech conference, or being the ‘wheelie-case guy’ everyone judges on arrival? Which makes you greener with embarrassment?”
Invokes both recent anecdotes – the suit and the “wheelie-case-wielding” conference-goers.
I have been asked worse questions.
And to be honest, I’ve definitely asked worse questions.
This whole process has given me an idea.
I’m just off to refine my avatar in readiness to launch myself into the metaverse.
I think that is what the world needs: a virtual David Parkin.
Yes I know: it’s got to be preferable to the real thing.
Have a great weekend.