Week Ending: Don’t mention the war; Governor Dave; Onside with Taylor; Deloitte
THE phrase ‘Don’t Mention the War’ has of course been immortalised in the famous ‘The Germans’ episode of Fawlty Towers.
Week Ending was conscious of the need to tread carefully this week, and avoid a Basil Fawlty moment on a visit to WFEL, the Stockport-based manufacturer of military bridges, owned since last year by German defence group Krauss-Maffei Wegmann.
As any local historian will know WFEL is a successor company to Fairey Aviation, which from its Heaton Chapel factory produced the Swordfish, a biplane torpedo bomber responsible for sinking the pride of the German navy The Bismarck in WW2.
Fortunately there were no Germans present, although one WFEL official did remark that the Luftwaffe nearly had its revenge – as a bomb had fallen on the next-door McVities biscuit factory during a wartime raid.
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DAVE Fishwick, the man whose efforts to set up a bank in Burnley featured in the Bank of Dave television programme, was a guest speaker at an event on business finance hosted by JMW Solicitors yesterday.
One wag in the audience suggested Dave conduct a reverse takeover of the ailing Co-op Bank and another said he should apply for the role of chairman.
But Dave clearly has loftier ambitions – he applied to be the governor of the Bank of England after Mervyn King retired and whipped out a copy of his rejection letter to prove it. “Thank you for your application to the post of governor of the Bank of England,” it read. However, he was “regretfully informed” he’d not made it to the next stage of the selection process.
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IS Michael Taylor, estwhile editor of a monthly regional business magazine missing the noble art of journalism?
The answer is a rather obvious yes, as Taylor, has returned to publishing by producing a magazine for investment and finance group Seneca,. Its title, ‘Onside for Business’ is surely a case of the insider becoming the outsider and beating the offside trap?
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WEEK Ending shudders at the prospect of next year’s Deloitte Annual Retail dinner.
2012 saw host Myles Duckworth, Deloitte’s head of consumer, sporting an impressively-honed Movember moustache, making him resemble an extra 1970s police drama The Sweeney.
This year he took to the stage adorned with a spectacular black eye accompanied with facial bruising. Despite quipping that he’d been on the under-card at the Froch-Groves boxing match last weekend, the reason for his injuries were a little less dramatic – he’d fallen off his bike and lost a negotiation with a paving stone.
So Myles, please try and take care in the next 12 months. We know retail has seen many casualties – but you don’t have to join the injury list.
