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.

One of the world’s best plays, in the opinion of the writer, is coming to the end of its London production run on February 3 at the Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue.

Glengarry Glen Ross is a politically-incorrect, scabrous, profane and wickedly funny 1983 satire from David Mamet on what a nightmare the American Dream really is and features four real estate salesmen in Chicago who are incentivised by a scheme where the top performer gets a Cadillac and the bottom one gets fired. Desperate to keep their jobs they lie, cheat, steal and corrupt – “All in a days work” and “Business as usual”, as the publicity notes. The title comes from two of the land packages offered by their firm, Glengarry Highlands and Glen Ross Farms. Continue reading →

Two people have died in a fire at the five star Cameron House resort, Loch Lomond, one at the scene and one in hospital.

The fire and ambulance services were alerted early on the morning of Monday December 18 and more than 200 guests were evacuated, with three being taken to hospital, and others treated for smoke inhalation at the scene. Dozens of firefighters attended the blaze, which reached the roof of the main building and caused extensive damage. No cause for the fire has yet been named. Continue reading →

Money-grubbing at our universities that sets the young a bad example still fills the pages of our national newspapers, though unsurprisingly doesn’t get much play in our plucky little trade mags that run advertising and PR for the sector.

o Following months of calls for Dame Glynis Bakewell, £468k vice-chancellor for the University of Bath to stand down she is finally doing so, after first grabbing a six-month sabbatical on full pay (Headline SHAMELESS TO THE LAST) Meanwhile her University has suffered a 6% drop in applications from new students, thought to be not unconnected to Bakewell’s greed.

o Sir Christopher Snowden, the £423k vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton has announced he will be axing 75 academic staff to “save money” (and help fund his “bloated salary”?)

o Former vice-chancellor of the tiny Bath Spa University, Christina Slade took a package worth £800,000 in her final year, which included a £429,000 golden goodbye.

Universities have also been accused of “mis-selling” low-quality degree courses to students, with the head of the National Audit Office, Sir Amyas Moore saying that if universities were banks they would be under investigation.

Imperial College London has been fined £70,000, and an NHS Trust £80,000 for health and safety breaches after a 32 year old scientist died in a laboratory in a building the university shared with Chelsea and Westminster Hospital.

Damian Bowen was working alone in the laboratory in 2011, using liquid nitrogen to test blood samples for HIV and was unaware that the ventilation system had been switched off. Escaping nitrogen displaced the oxygen in the air and he suffocated…

The university and the hospital both pleaded guilty to two charges of breaching a general duty to an employee and were both ordered to pay costs of £23,000.

Some large contract caterers serving food in UK event venues have admitted including on their menus species of fish on the red at-risk list compiled by the Marine Conservation Society (MCS). Species are red-listed because of over-fishing endangering their survival, because they are produced unsustainably, or because some part of the supply chain involves slavery.

Caterers admitting to serving red-listed fish are Compass Group UK and Ireland, ISS and Sodexo, and the survey was carried out by food charity Sustain.

The MCS recommend that caterers avoid 63 varieties, including yellow fin tuna, king prawns and eel.

Another couple from Liverpool have been found submitting a fraudulent claim for holiday food poisoning.

Craig and Lisa Boyd claimed £2,000 in compensation from holiday firm TUI, claiming that the food in their Mexican resort hotel made them too ill to leave their room, both in 2015 and 2016. Despite this they had booked the same hotel for the third time this year, and their Facebook posts showed them abseiling, sailing on a yacht and necking cocktails when they had claimed to be violently ill in bed.

Faced with this the Boyds withdrew their claim, saying they had been pressured by a tout paid to drum up business for a no-win no-fee solicitor. They then had to pay the £6,000 costs of the case and hear the judge brand them as “fundamentally dishonest”.

This follows the recent jailing of another Liverpool couple, Paul Roberts and Deborah Briton, for a fraudulent claim of nearly £20,000 against Thomas Cook. (See Event Organisers Update, November – HOLIDAY FRAUDSTERS JAILED)

The owner of a Magaluf nightclub where a young female teenager performed an oral sex act on 24 men there in 2014 to win what she thought was a holiday (it was a £4 drink) is being investigated by the authorities there on suspicion of being the ringleader behind the escalation in fraudulent claims for food poisoning.

Laura Joyce, 37, was fined, along with Carnage, the organisers of the pub crawl during which the above took place, £43,500. Joyce closed her club after the fine, reopened under a new name but has now closed that too.