A DJ rapper, a former England cricketer nicknamed Badger because he fidgets a lot, an Apprentice candidate who irked Lord Sugar for not selling enough cat towers in a pet promotion and a sports presenter idolised by rugby league fans.
Putting all four together in front of an audience of top business people and hoping it might add up to entertainment was probably the stupidest thing I’d done since telling Sir Ken Morrison, one of Yorkshire’s richest men, he’d love a market I’d recently visited because there were loads of bargains.
But when you say you’ll help out a charity, you have to try to deliver.
So walking into the Lord’s Taverners Balloon Debate at Headingley last night I probably felt as nervous as I had been when I competed in the first event two years ago.
Whereas then, I only had to worry about what I was going to say, this time I was reliant on what four other people were going to say.
To my great relief Nick Ahad, Paul Nixon, Ruth Whiteley and Tanya Arnold were four interesting, entertaining and enthusiastic speakers who gave our audience a night to remember.
If you’ve never come across a Balloon Debate before then it is based on the imaginary idea that four people are in the basket of a hot air balloon which is thousands of feet in the air but losing height and only one can remain if it is to reach the ground safely.
So they all must speak about a sporting hero over a series of three rounds with one getting voted out each time until there is a winner.
I would describe our balloonists as an eclectic bunch.
Broadcaster Tanya Arnold is the main presenter of the Super League Show on BBC One and a sports presenter with BBC Look North.
She has many fans and a bit of Googling enabled me to find a website dedicated to people who’ve seen celebrities out and about.
I was able to inform her that she was spotted about five weeks ago crossing the road between Leeds bus station and the West Yorkshire Playhouse carrying a sandwich.
It shows what type of people use that particular website because someone had asked the question: “What sort of sarnie was it?”
Tanya informed the audience that she only eats salad for lunch so it can’t have been her.
Ruth Whiteley appears in the current series of The Apprentice but was fired by Lord Sugar after failing to sell pet products successfully, particularly cat towers.
But she has a successful sales training consultancy with her husband Andy and so who needs the Sugar man?
Nick Ahad’s greatest sporting achievement was opening the batting with Dirty Den from Eastenders in a charity celebrity cricket match against a Harold Pinter XI.
He is a BBC Radio presenter and Nick interviewed me on his BBC Radio Leeds Show yesterday morning to talk about the Balloon Debate and in a way that only a very talented broadcaster can, his link from the record he was playing into talking to me was seamless: That was Mental As Anything and this is David Parkin.
I welcomed Paul Nixon to the stage last night by telling the audience that here is a man who has played at the highest level for England, Leicestershire and Kent and won plenty of silverware.
I told the audience: “I’ve got a book at home called England’s 100 Greatest Cricketers. And this man here, Paul Nixon…has read it too.”
Fortunately Nico has a brilliant sense of humour, so didn’t smack me one.
All of our Balloonists were brilliant in their six minute first round speeches and it was a surprise to see Tanya, who had chosen Olympian Jessica Ennis as her sporting hero, depart the balloon after the first round.
Despite rapping the words of John Barnes from England’s World in Motion World Cup song in 1990 and then a Michael Jordan (his sporting hero) rap, Nick Ahad was ejected after the second round, with Ruth, who had chosen gymnast Louis Smith as her hero, just shading the vote.
Then it was head to head between Paul and Ruth.
Paul had chosen a Yorkshireman as his hero. Huddersfield-born Chris Balderstone played for Paul’s beloved Carlisle United but it was at Doncaster Rovers where he made history – becoming the only player to play league football and first class cricket (for Leicestershire) on the same day.
If the bar staff, all university students, were anything to go by, then Ruth would have walked it. They all are big fans of The Apprentice and thought it a scandal that Ruth had been fired by Lord Sugar.
But on the night a former sportsman nicknamed Badger triumphed and all four of our speakers helped us raise thousands of pounds for the wonderful work of the Lord’s Taverners, the UK’s leading youth cricket and disability sports charity dedicated to giving disadvantaged and disabled young people a sporting chance.
Last year the work of the Lord’s Taverners helped 216,000 young people and our event, sponsored by UBS and Panacea Investment Group, will help support its ongoing great work in the community.
Next year we’ll be holding the Balloon Debate on the eve of the Headingley Test Match between England and Sri Lanka on Wednesday, May 18th so stick it in your diary.
:::
I’VE finally found someone who understands me.
Unfortunately it wasn’t the woman of my dreams but a Swede called Sven who I sat next to at a dinner at a travel conference and exhibition in Barcelona this week.
IBTM in Barcelona is a bit like the MIPIM property convention in Cannes but with less egos and a higher proportion of women.
A fellow guest on the table had mentioned how she had had to encourage her sales team to ask questions of their potential clients rather than just launching into their prepared sales pitch.
I offered the opinion that perhaps it is a result of the ‘me’ generation of today. For many, and not just younger people, it is all about them.
The rise and rise of the selfie sums it up: Look at me, look at what I’m doing, what do you think of me?
Everybody seems to want to tell you what they think rather than being interested and asking questions of others.
I went on to say that I much prefer asking questions of others because I don’t want them to find out how uninteresting I am.
Sven swivelled in his seat, pointed at me and proclaimed: “That is so true, it is all about the selfie generation. That was very perceptive, tell me what you said again, I’m going to write it down and tell other people.”
If I had had a rare moment of clear thought, as soon as I was asked to repeat it, it disappeared from whence it came.
I felt a bit like Stan Laurel in the short Laurel and Hardy film Towed In A Hole. The comic pair are fish salesmen and Stan tells Ollie that they should invest in a boat to catch fish, cutting out the middle man.
Ollie asks him to explain it again.
Removing his bowler hat and scratching his head, Stan says: “If you caught a fish, whoever you sold it to wouldn’t have to pay for it and the profits would go to the fish.”
Ollie replies: “I know exactly what you mean.”
I don’t think Sven knew what I meant, because he abandoned his attempt to write down my words of wisdom and poured himself another large glass of wine.
Have a great weekend.