To Coyne A Phrase

A Steph in the right direction

BBC Breakfast business news reporter and presenter Steph McGovern was in good form hosting Grant Thornton’s Agents of Growth event at Edgbaston Cricket Ground this week.

Amiable Smoggie Steph revealed that she has to get up at 3.30am to do her job but she clearly loves what she does.

She revealed she particularly loves being out on the road and reporting from industrial locations in areas such as the West Midlands.

“I spend a lot of time in safety gear,” she said. “In fact there is now a fetish website called Steph in safety gear.”

The presenter revealed that highlights of her BBC Breakfast career include being kicked by a pig live on air and being mistaken for a prostitute at Grimsby Fish Market.

Incidentally, Steph has recently re-located to the North West like many of her BBC colleagues and eagle-eyed Business Desk journo Duncan Tift saw her at Euston Station recently moving some of her stuff. Prominent amongst this was a framed poster of the movie The Godfather.

I was tempted to approach her at the event this week to ask her how her Godfather poster is looking on the wall of her new home but I thought better of it.

It’s one thing being the subject of a fetish website but I didn’t want the poor girl thinking she has a stalker as well.

Ethics? No, Sussex

I WAS interested to read that Body Shop co-founder Gordon Roddick has invested in what is thought to be the first ethical supermarket in, inevitably, Brighton.

hiSbe ,which stands for ‘how it Should be’, will offer fairly sourced products at fair prices.

Co-founders Ruth and Amy Anslow have spent three years developing the business and have raised nearly £200,000 of investment, including £30,000 through Buzzbnk, the biggest campaign on the crowd funding site to date.

It’s a venture worthy of note because a number of these ethical ventures – such as Body Shop – have started off local and ended up with a national footprint.

To an extent – at least on the food side of things – such a venture already exists in the shape of farm shops, scores of which have sprung up in this region in recent years.

Given that ASDA developed from a collection of dairy farmers in Yorkshire, would it not be possible to link together a number of these farm shops and brand them as a regional food chain?

I’m sure there would be a market for products with local provenance and it would give a timely boost to the regional food sector as well.

I’m not sure what you would call it though. Unfortunately the Farm Foods name has already been taken!

A profitable loss?

THE news that Birmingham City’s owner has posted a £10m loss has received a mixed reaction from Blues fans.

Clearly it is bad news that the club’s finances are in such a dreadful state but, for technical reasons, the fact that Birmingham International Holdings has posted the figure makes the possibility of a takeover a likelier possibility.

The situation remains confusing, however. Whilst the local papers are full of stories of one consortium or another being interested in taking Blues over, the club’s owners are still saying that there are no immediate plans to sell.

I’m sure the average Blues fan on the street can’t wait for the whole Carson Yeung adventure to be over and for new owners to be in place offering the prospect of taking the club forward.

The best they can hope at present is for the club not to be relegated out of the Championship.

Blues fans of my acquaintance are living more in despair than hope at the moment and are, quite naturally, clinging onto any hint of positive news coming out of Hong Kong – where owner Yeung is on trial and the club is listed – or from local sources.

As a Villa fan I take no great pleasure in this state of affairs. Despite the rivalry between the clubs, most of the Villa fans I know would rather that Blues were back in the Premier League.

It would be good news for the city and would provide two local derbies of a stomach-churning intensity that simply cannot be matched in Villa v West Brom clashes.

And if any Villa fans tells you differently ask them why they were singing songs about ‘Small Heath’ during the game against Albion on Monday night if the rivalry is now insignificant.

One final point about Blues’ potential. The close proximity of the planned HS2 terminal and the associated redevelopment of Eastside is but a short walk from St Andrews. It doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to see a new stadium built as part of the future regeneration of the area.

Such plans would certainly make Blues attractive to foreign investors with Man City and the Etihad Stadium a model of how this might work.

Such potential could see Blues fans having the last laugh even if it does seem a long way away at the moment.

Have a great weekend.