HOW times have changed.
In my youth, if you were told that an exotically-named billionaire was planning to launch a rocket to the moon that was twice as powerful as anything sent before it into space, you’d have probably thought it was the fantastical plot of the next James Bond film starring Roger Moore.
But 1970s fantasy became millennial reality this week when American entrepreneur Elon Musk launched his rocket, the Falcon Heavy into space.
Not only that but the rocket – which is capable of carrying a payload of 64 tonnes, equivalent to five double-decker buses – was carrying Musk’s own red Tesla sports car (he is the founder of the electric car manufacturer) with a space-suited mannequin at the wheel and David Bowie’s Space Oddity playing on a loop on the car’s stereo.
In the future it is said that the Falcon Heavy could transport bigger satellites and take large robots to the surface of Mars and other planets such as Saturn and Jupiter and their moons.
Now the rocket is in orbit above the Earth, Nasa has officially designated the California-built cherry red Tesla it is carrying and its dummy driver as a “celestial object”.
Even Ian Fleming wouldn’t have pushed his luck with a plot like that.
In the 1979 film Moonraker James Bond is sent to investigate the theft of a space shuttle which leads him to Hugo Drax, who manufactured the shuttle and harbours a plan to wipe out the world’s population and recreate humanity with a master race on the moon.
I don’t think I’m ruining the story for you if I say that Bond follows the trail from California to Venice, Rio de Janeiro and the Amazon rainforest before finally foiling Drax’s plot.
One of the bodyguards to Hugo Drax in the film is the iconic Bond villain Jaws – the giant stainless steel toothed nemesis of the super spy.
But what let it down for me was the name of the space scientist who provides Bond’s love interest in Moonraker.
Dr Holly Goodhead.
All that careful work to create a believable plot and they go and let it down with a name that sounds more like it should be in a Carry On film.
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FOOD and drink is one of Yorkshire’s biggest exports and attractions and the industry contributes millions to the region’s economy.
Yorkshire boasts world-class innovative producers who lead the way in all manner of food and drink businesses.
Our company, COPA, is bringing together a panel of food and drink entrepreneurs on behalf of our client Woodrow Mercer Finance FDYL, a firm which recruits finance staff and which, uniquely, is itself run by former finance directors.
Panellists include Peter Ahye, who went from main board director of major companies to establishing Freaks of Nature, which manufactures dairy-free and gluten-free plant-based delicious desserts which are now stocked by Waitrose among other major store chains.
Alongside Peter we have Razan Alsous, a Syrian refugee who established the Yorkshire Dama Cheese company which makes an award-winning halloumi cheese.
Also talking cheese will be Stephen Fleming, once in charge of IT for law firm Gordons, who went off to pursue his dream and lifelong love of cheese and launched his own cheese shop, George & Joseph, in the Leeds suburb of Chapel Allerton in 2013.
Washing down the food will be Slingsby Gin, courtesy of Marcus Black, who co-founded the hugely successful premium Harrogate gin brand in 2015.
Guests will hear how these businesses are thriving in this most competitive of sectors, and get a chance to sample their products.
The Taste of Success: The Business of Food and Drink is being held on Wednesday 14th March at Mans Market on Wellington Street in Leeds from 5.30pm.
Places are limited but if you would like to attend then go to www.woodrowmercer.com/events or call 0113 457 9990
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CHATTING to a fellow guest at a charity dinner this week, the conversation turned to whereabouts he lived.
“I’ve got a farm near Tadcaster,” he told me.
I asked if he knew Chris Makin, an entrepreneurial Yorkshire farmer who built a business growing strawberries for Morrisons and now is developing the Leeds East private airport at the former RAF base at Church Fenton near Tadcaster.
It is also where the ITV series Victoria is filmed and Buckingham Palace has been recreated in a vast aircraft hangar on the land around the airport.
I had a surreal experience being shown around it last year. The lights on the set weren’t on and so we picked our way through Queen Victoria’s throne room, boudoir and nursery using our mobile phones as torches and being careful not to dislodge the spray-painted plastic swords on the walls.
Anyway my fellow guest said he didn’t know Chris Makin but that some scenes from Victoria were actually filmed on his farm.
Were they the romantic shots where Victoria and her beloved Prince Albert ride in the verdant grounds of Windsor Castle or perhaps where they take tea on the terrace overlooking the majestic gardens of Buckingham Palace, I wondered?
“No,” he replied. “It was the scenes of an Irish village during the Potato Famine.”
Have a great weekend.