Week Ending: Smith’s skip theory; ‘Baggs the brand’

ECONOMISTS are well known for their love of statistics, graphs, flow charts, pie charts and the like.

So it was great to hear a more basic theory of where we are in the economy from David Smith, the respected economics editor of the Sunday Times in Liverpool on Thursday evening.

He said: “When I look at my street if I see no skips, then we are in a mess, if there are two skips and people are renovating their homes, then we are on trend and growing OK.

“If it’s four or five, then it’s an unsustainable bubble and we’re doomed.”

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Lord Sugar’s former PR man, Nick Hewer, who has become something of a TV personality in his own right since appearing on The Apprentice, was in forgiving mood as he recalled his time on the popular business show.

The erudite Hewer, who fired himself at the end of the last series, is working with Wilmslow-based advisory firm Citiation to highlight regulation in small business.

He visited Manchester this week in a new ambassadorial role for health and safety, employment law and HR services provider for SMEs, Citation and he said many of the bloomers made by contestants on the show are also made by real businesses.

When TheBusinessDesk.com asked him what was the most amusing thing to happen on the show, 71-year-old Hewer replied: “There were many funny things which happened.

“For example I remember in one exercise in Marrakech in Morocco one contestant was told to go and get some kosher chicken, but instead came back with halal chicken.

“Another time, the task was to make fragrance for soap. We asked them to find cedar wood scent, but they came back with sandalwood.

“These things are amusing, but in my experience, they are the sort of things that happen in business all the time. Sometimes, people make basic mistakes, because they are working at speed or under pressure.”

One man who Hewer will never forget will be the 2010 contestant Stuart Baggs.

“He really was the most extraordinary character. Amazing,” said Hewer.

Ise of Man based Baggs was the youngest entrant in the show at 21 and viewers became riveted to the cocky entrepreneur who declared himself “The Brand”.

He swaggered on to the show with the motto: “Everything I touch turns to sold.”

And he came out with the classic line: “I’m not a one-trick pony, nor a ten-trick pony, but a whole field of ponies” as he desperately fought for a place in the final.