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Breakout
Cold call
The Times newspaper reported Leading
Authorities, the speaker agency, made the
mistake of approaching supermarket chain
Iceland to proffer retailer Bill Grimsey as
an expert speaker.
Reportedly, Steve Bagshaw, the agency’s
UK MD, said Grimsey was “available to
discuss the future of retail”.
Keith Hann, Iceland’s director of
Critical
mass
corporate affairs, fired back: “We know Mr
Grimsey very well – rather better than you
do, I suspect. He was in charge of our
business for four utterly miserable years…
I think I can safely say that absolutely
none of his former colleagues here would
be prepared to pay a penny to hear Mr
Grimsey’s insights.”
Thin ice
hat are the two worst
things to combine?
You’re wrong: it’s ice
and live events.
February has given us two live event
crackers to enjoy. First of all, there was
Gemma Collins who, CN is reliably
informed by someone under the age of
25, is a “celebrity”. What she was
famous for is now irrelevant, as her
s any event
manager will
testify, the bigger
the group, the
trickier the event
management. So, pray, then,
for the event organisers in
charge of the Pope’s recent
visit to Abu Dhabi, UAE. More
than 170,000 Catholics from
the emirate’s Indian and
Filipino community
congregated at Zayed Sport
City for an open-air mass by
His Holiness. We wonder, did
they have to pre-register?
www.conference-news.co.uk
fantastic tumble and diva-ness on ITV’s
Dancing On Ice has made her a
household name.
Next up was former Chelsea and
Manchester United manager Jose
Mourinho. The Special One was tasked
with the ceremonial task of dropping the
puck to get a Russian ice-hockey game
underway. He did just that, but went
down with the puck for good measure.