MPs are preparing to debate new laws which could impose an outright ban on cold calls, something 85% of consumers would support.
The move follows revelations that 4,200 nuisance calls are sent every minute, totalling 2.2 billion a year, with most relating to bogus personal injury claims. Insurance claims, PPI and pensions. Nearly one third are targeted at those 65 or older.
Following concerns that high caffeine drinks such as Red Bull are responsible for bad behaviour of children in school, a number of supermarkets are banning their sale to under-sixteens.
These include Asda, Aldi and Waitrose, and more recently Morrisons, which are concerned that 10% of teachers cite the drinks as being a key cause of poor pupil behaviour.
A bad decision made by someone un-named at Virgin Trains has been sensibly overturned by the firm’s owner, Sir Richard Branson.
The bad decision was to stop offering Virgin’s travelling customers the Daily Mail on the basis that some Virgin staff had been upset by the paper’s editorial positions on such issues as immigration, unemployment and LGBT rights, and felt that people shouldn’t be exposed to them whilst riding on Virgin.
Following accusations of censorship Branson took the view that his company “should not ever be seen to be censoring what our customers read or influencing their freedom of choice, nor moralising on behalf of others”.
A sense of humour failure, we hear, prevailed among marketeers at opticians Specsavers after one of their branded cars hit a lamp-post in Liverpool. Newspapers looking for a witty response to the crash, in which no-one was hurt were treated to a terse statement of the facts from the usual anonymous “spokesman”.
The firm is famous for its humorous ads where people make mistakes because of poor vision and which carry the strapline “Should’ve gone to Specsavers”. So the photograph of the crashed car, with witty comments, flooded onto social media, and in the national press.
Examples included “What a spectacle” “Didn’t see that one coming” and “One in the eye for the opticians”.
Let’s hope someone at Specsavers has the vision and the insight to use the photo in a future witty ad. After all, we all like people who can laugh at themselves.
The Duchess of York is claiming she has lost more than £40 million in expected business earnings because she was exposed trying to sell access to her former husband, Prince Andrew, in a sting in 2010 by the now-defunct News of the World.
The Duchess claims that the newspaper, with the help of the now-discredited “Fake Sheikh” undercover reporter Mazher Mahmood, “ruined her reputation”.
A trampoline centre in Chester has removed its Tower Jump after a fourth visitor broke her back using it last year.
Dental nurse Lucy Jones, 19, broke a vertebra in her spine after taking the twelve foot jump into a foam pit and needed rods in her back to help the healing process. She was housebound for four months after the accident and is now suing the trampoline centre, Flip Out Chester. On February 1st last year three others broke their backs there after making the jump, one of whom is also suing the centre.
Flip Out are based in Bournemouth, have 20 centres in the UK and promote them for personal and corporate events.
The far-right ultranationalist political group Britain First called itself Patriot Merchandise to secure a meeting room for their 2017 one-day conference last December at Wyboston Lakes in Bedfordshire. (Conference News)
The booking was made at short notice and images on social media showed the Oakley Suite decked with banners carrying the slogan “Taking our country back”.
Management at the venue have donated the fee paid to charity and have stated that they would not have accepted the booking had they realised the nature of it and that the values of their company “conflict in totality” with those of Britain First.
o Five thieves armed with axes raided the jewellery store at the Ritz Hotel, Paris and took items worth £4 million on January 10th. Police very quickly arrived and caught three of the thieves as the other two, accomplices waiting outside to receive the loot, made off in a car and on a motorbike, the motorcyclist dropping the bag of the stolen goods as he pulled away. Police said no-one was hurt.
o A Britannia hotel, the Grand Burstin in Folkestone, Kent has been ordered to pay £12,781 compensation to a widow who had jewellery stolen from her locked bedroom.
Primrose Grainger, 77, woke up to see two thieves in her room taking her valuable rings from her bedside table in July 2013. Britannia Hotels argued in court that she could have avoided the loss by putting her valuables in one of its safe deposit boxes. However the judge at Central London county court heard that there had been a spate of robberies at the hotel and that the thieves had probably found a key to her room in the building. He found that Britannia Hotels could have prevented the theft by upgrading its keycard security.
A claim from Ms Grainger for psychiatric damage was rejected on the grounds that this was “not foreseeable” by the hotel.
o Marriott International Hotels and the Thompson Group have been criticised by environmentalists for continuing to supply and promote “walking with lions” experiences for Marriott guests at the four-star Ranch Protea Hotel, Limpopo.
The human-wildlife interactions are designed to instill a lack of fear of humans into the lions, which are later sold to those organising sick “canned hunts”. Here the lions are transferred to small enclosures where brave hunters pay to shoot the docile animals at close range. The lion’s body parts and bones are then sold to the Chinese medicine industry.
A number of comedians suitable for hiring at a range of corporate events were showcased recently by London speaker bureau Performing Artistes.
o Cally Beaton has had 25 years in the media industry and is a sought-after comedian, public speaker, panellist and presenter who enjoys turning gender stereotypes on their heads. She has been described as “fiery, intelligent and totally original”.
o Daliso Chaponda is the son of a Malawian politician and has built a reputation in comedy clubs in South Africa, Canada, Singapore, and Australia as well as the UK, including in Big Value shows at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe. He is also a prolific fiction writer.
o Rhys James has already appeared on numerous TV programmes and specialises in stand-up comedy combined with unpretentious poetry, also a popular act at the Edinburgh Fringe. He has been described by Time Out as a “Sickeningly talented young stand-up”.
o Geoff Norcott is a writer, comedian and presenter with extensive experience of corporate events and an ability to work with material supplied. He has also clocked up multiple TV appearances and has been described as “fantastic” and “a much-needed morale boost”.
o Mike Osman is an experienced after dinner speaker whose comedy impressions now include a lifelike Donald Trump, complete with custom-made blonde wig, orange tan and outrageous rhetoric, and available for selfies. Also Jamie Oliver, Boris Johnson Gordon Ramsay and Nigel Farage.
o Said to be Europe’s largest the 500 million euro refurbished Paris Convention Centre offers a plenary hall of 5,200 seats linked directly to 44,000 square metres of exhibition space, another 172,000 square metres of exhibition space and up to 50 additional rooms created by partitions. The Centre was formerly part of the Parc des Expositions at the Port de Versailles on the outskirts of the city.
o A new 51,000 square metre conference centre, Caesars Forum, is planned for Las Vegas for 2020.
Costing around $375 million (£271 million) this will incorporate the world’s two largest pillarless ballrooms and 28,000 square metres of flexible space built on an 18 acre site east of the Las Vegas Strip.