TRIUMPH FOR SOCIAL MEDIA INFLUENCERS?

The credibility of those who are paid and used to promote products and services to their willing followers on social media has taken a significant nosedive.

Ten of the world’s models, including the likes of Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid were used along with another 400 influencers by organiser Billy McFarland, who is now in jail for fraud, to promote his Fyre Festival, puffed up as a luxury music festival in the Bahamas with five-star accommodation, private jets and limos for transport and gourmet cuisine. All this, and the paid endorsements of models that their followers trusted, persuaded 5,000 aspirants to pay up to £9,000 for a ticket to the event in 2017.

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I’M GLAD YOU ASKED ME THAT

Those organisers and PR types who think they are being awfully clever arranging for planted question at their events should know that they are very easy for an intelligent audience to spot and that they are really nothing new.

One former orator and advocate of the deception once boasted “At all our meetings I had party members in the audience with orders to interrupt, along carefully prepared lines, to give the impression of a spontaneous expression of public opinion. These interruptions strengthened the force of my argument”.

The clever orator who orchestrated his own heckling? Adolf Hitler, in 1921.

A TITANIC EXPERIENCE

Fine dining for up to 50 people with views over the Liverpool waterfront will be offered from next month on a new balcony at the 7th floor Carpathia restaurant at the 30, James Street hotel. The building was originally the offices of the White Star Line, owners of the tragic Titanic, which hit an iceberg and sank in 1914, killing more than 1,500 passengers in the freezing seas; 1,352 men, half of which were crew, 109 women and 53 children.

On a happier note the restaurant menu offers such starters as pan-fried sea-bream with salt baked beetroot, lemon balm and olive oil (£9.50), and confit duck leg terrine with orange gel, baby onions, beetroot puree and sourdough (£7.50). Main courses are such as fillet of red mullet with a citrus and peanut crust, chilli and garlic greens and minted pea puree (£17.50) and 8 oz fillet steak, short beef rib and potato lattice with white onion puree, baby vegetables and roasting jus (£28.50). Desserts include sticky toffee pudding with vanilla bean ice cream, and almond brittle and baked rhubarb and custard cheesecake with set rhubarb jelly and stem ginger, both at £6.50.

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EVENT SHOWS TO DOCKLANDS

International Confex, the Event Production Show and the PA Show are all moving from Olympia in 2020 and relocating at Excel in Docklands.

The events have been at Olympia since 2013 but the organisers, Mash Media, now feel that Excel is a better venue in which to grow the shows, which will take place Tuesday February 25 and Wednesday February 26, 2020.

Now all they have to do is to get the visitors out there.

ONE FOR COVENTRY

A new 88-bedroom boutique hotel is to be created by 2021 in Coventry city centre, in the former offices of the Coventry Evening Telegraph. (The Business Desk)

There will be a 1950’s theme to the unit, which will be operated by Bespoke Hotels, and there will be conference rooms, a restaurant, a roof-top bar and a range of loft-style two-storey bedrooms in the former print room.

Behind the hotel, and part of the deal agreed, there will be student accommodation with 833 rooms opening as phase one in September 2020.

WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION

Charles Laughton, 1999-1962, was the brilliant, bisexual and tortured actor who appeared in more than 50 films, most from 1933, after giving up a career as a manager at his parent’s Scarborough hotel, the Pavilion, now demolished.

Laughton graced a number of memorable roles as a monster or misfit which included Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty, Quasimodo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Doctor Moreau in The Island of Lost Souls and Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII. Another memorable role was as crusty and eccentric lawyer, Sir Wilfrid Robarts in Witness For The Prosecution, based on an Agatha Christie play and directed by Billy Wilder in 1957.

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HAVE YOU BEEN MISLED BY THESE?

Fourteen women and two men who promote products and services to their fan bases on social media have pledged to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that they will henceforth make it clear when they are being paid in any way for their endorsement, making it worth nothing.

The women named by the CMA , after an investigation into the murky nature of selling on social media, are model and writer Alexa Chung, Alexandra Felstead (Made in Chelsea TV) singer Ellie Goulding, Holly Hagan (Geordie Shore TV), designer and model Rosie Huntington – Whiteley, actress Michelle Keegan, model Iskra Lawrence, Camilla Mackintosh (Made in Chelsea TV) Megan McKenna (Reality TV), singer Rita Ora, Chloe Sims (Only Way is Essex TV), blogger Zoe Sugg, Louise Thompson (Made in Chelsea TV) and blogger Dina Tonkia. The men named are blogger James Chapman and Mario Falcone (Only Way is Essex TV). If they fail to comply with the agreement reached with the CMA they could be taken to court, fined heavily or face prison sentences of up to two years.

All of the above sixteen were being investigated because they may have repeatedly broken the rules, which require them to make it clear when an endorsement has been paid for.

SIR NICK PULLS IT OFF

Former deputy PM Sir Nick Clegg has started earning the high salary he is now paid by Facebook, by defending Mark Zuckerberg’s firm against claims it damages the lives of young people with posts of gory images of self-harm, and the glorification of suicide, on its Instagram pages. Instagram currently stands accused of driving a 14 year old schoolgirl, Molly Russell, who killed herself in 2017 after viewing Instagram posts about suicide.

Shown some of the sickening pictures from Instagram in a BBC interview Clegg, who has three sons aged 16, 14 and 9, was asked “Slit wrists, smeared blood, a girl cuddling a teddy bear with ‘This world is so cruel and I don’t want to see it any more’ – You’ve got three children, would you let them anywhere near that” and Clegg replied “No, of course not”.

Despite this he claimed his new employer had been a “force for good” that “had helped troubled young people”.

Wonder if Clegg will ever resign his well-paid puffing position, and his £7 million Californian house on a matter of principle?

BOUQUET FOR CATHY PACIFIC

Airline Cathy Pacific has won plaudits for standing by an error it had made when publishing prices for first class travel in its New Years Day sale.

The first-class fare from Vietnam to New York, usually £12,700 was mistakenly shown as £536 for August, cutting more than £12,000 off the fare. Cathy Pacific acknowledged their mistake, blamed on human error, but congratulated those who had bought the tickets at the “very good surprise price” and hoped they would make 2019 special.

Other airlines may have tried to wriggle out…