Run on the bank

Published on Thursday 20 September 2007 00:11

HOW quickly they forget. Matt Ridley, erstwhile Daily Telegraph columnist, has been under fire in his role as the £300,000-a-year chairman of Northern Rock after the Weimar Republic-like scenes outside its branches. As a journalist, Ridley mocked "the desire to abolish greed" and railed against "nostalgia for the days when politicians were needed and admired, when government was thought a solution, not an obstacle". Lucky for Ridley, the Bank of England was on hand to bail Northern Rock out.

Extras

ARE BBC cutbacks really that bad? Director-general Mark Thompson has been drafted in as an extra on an episode of Radio 4's The Archers. Thompson was on a visit to the BBC studios in Birmingham when he was asked if he would like to take part in a scene set in the Archers' local pub, The Bull. The episode will be broadcast on 19 October. Presumably the DG, with his 788,000 salary, will waive any extra's fee.

'Daredevil reporter'

A SWIPE at Alastair Campbell from former independent MP Martin Bell in his book The Truth That Sticks. Bell recalls that during the bombing of Serbia, Campbell criticised journalists for complaining about NATO strategy rather than going to report on the ground, and said: "The age of the daredevil reporter seems to have died." Bell responds now by chiding Campbell for "having flown in and out under close SAS protection".

Ulrika is away

NEWS of the World editor Colin Myler is ringing the changes. Columnist Ulrika Jonsson, appointed by his predecessor Andy Coulson in 2003, is being dropped. Myler has raided the Sunday Mirror to poach Carole Malone as a replacement. In time-honoured Fleet Street fashion, Jonsson was reportedly on holiday when she learned of the revamp.

Healthy

FINALLY, what better venue for a conference called "the future health of marketing" than the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh?

The Marketing Society Scotland event features speakers including David Meneer from the Eden Project, and former Scotsman Publications marketing man Guy Grieve, who tested his endurance with a year in the Alaskan wilderness and who threw caution - and his clothes - to the wind earlier this week at the start of his new Channel 4 series, The Wild Gourmets.

The Marketing Society also wants to see the best of Scottish talent for next year's excellence awards. Ken Grier, from the Edrington Group, says: "Scottish marketing is currently in great shape. We are hoping for more entries from the financial sector, the public sector, young professionals and anyone else with a great story to tell."