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THE tables were turned on me this week. I’m used to asking questions of others but rarely has the spotlight been turned back on me. I’d spent some time chatting to Chris Allen, the managing partner of Leeds law firm Blacks at a Welcome to Yorkshire dinner in October when he told me about his […]

WHERE there’s muck there’s brass, they say. Unfortunately there’s now no Brass and a bit of a mess. The Leeds creative agency with a pedigree which goes back decades and an alumni list of talent that stretches out across Yorkshire to London and beyond, is no more. It took years to build and appeared to

IT’S been a bit of a surreal week. If you don’t believe me it started with me interviewing three of the contestants from this year’s The Great British Bake Off at Leeds Arena. And then watching football pundit Chris Kamara singing numbers from his new Christmas album. If you don’t think that’s surreal then I’d

IT’S not hard to see why Prince Andrew has only done a few media interviews over the years. His appearance on Newsnight last weekend was initially described as a “car crash” by commentators but now looks more like a nuclear explosion which has wrecked his reputation and caused collateral damage to the Royal Family. It

I’VE found the antidote to these dark, damp, dreary autumn afternoons. Do something uplifting. While my usual uplifting experience on a Friday afternoon is to down a decent bottle of vino collapso, last week was a bit different. As one of the honorary degree alumni of Leeds Beckett University, I was invited to attend the

CALL me old fashioned but when I attended an event organised by The Times and The Sunday Times yesterday I expected to see a newspaper. But try as I might I could not find one copy of a paper at the Growth Summit in Leeds that the publishers organised with accountancy giant KPMG. What the

IT appears to be a thoroughly modern phenomenon. Created through a unique conspiracy of social media and the anger generated by an ever more polarised society. The death threat. It seems a day doesn’t go by without a politician, celebrity or sports person reporting that they have been issued with a warning of mortal retribution.

I WENT on a cultural tour of Hull last Friday. I know what you’re thinking. That must have been a nice 15 minutes, but what did you do for the rest of the day? Don’t worry I’ve heard it all before.  To be honest, I’ve probably said it all before. But after three years of

FAREWELL then Lord Bell. With his slicked-back hair, Savile Row suits, and heavy drinking and smoking, Tim Bell, who made his name at advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, before going on to found the public relations firm Bell Pottinger, could have been the leading man in a British version of Mad Men. He was credited

THEY call it six degrees of separation, but sometimes it is a lot closer than that. In my last blog a couple of weeks ago I mentioned a trip to Grantley Hall, Yorkshire’s newest luxury hotel, and another trip to Huddersfield Town as a guest of Jason Taylor of Core Facility Services. It turns out