The Spike

Published on Thursday 4 October 2007 01:13

Flying the flag

PLATFORM PR is celebrating being the only Scottish PR firm to be short-listed at the PR Week Awards.

The agency, established in 2002 in the Highlands, is a finalist in the crisis and issues management category, for work done for Moray Estates, which is planning a new town between Inverness and Nairn.

Last year the PR firm expanded into the central belt, where its clients now include the National Lottery, Starbucks and Scottish and Southern Energy.

The Platform PR team, including managing director Jane Cumming and chairman Flora Martin, will find out if they've won at the awards ceremony in London's Grosvenor House Hotel on 24 October.

Turning up the tone

A LESSON in mobile-phone interruption management from Rolf Harris at the Self-Portrait Exhibition at the Royal Society of Portrait Painters, in London. Interrupted mid-speech, Harris quickly identified the ring tone as The Minute Waltz, and joked: "Wait a minute - can you turn that up a bit?"

Too-fast food

THE kitchen temptress, Nigella Lawson, has already attracted criticism for her new series Nigella Express by hiring a bus to ride on and filling it with extras pretending to read the newspapers posing as normal passengers. Now she has been upbraided for consuming a flask of pea and pesto soup on the bus in the same episode.

Does this send out the right signals about a decline in standards?

"It is antisocial to eat in the street or on public transport," muses Mary Killen, a social commentator. "It makes people want some if it's delicious and they can't have any.

"On the other hand, if it's smelly and disgusting, it makes their clothes smell. Eating in public adds to the general sense of life being unbearably hectic."

All change on CIPR board

CAROL Matthews, of Matthews Marketing, has succeeded Tom Fox, from the Scottish Prison Service, as chairman of the Scottish branch of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).

During the CIPR AGM, Chris Bell, of Wave PR, was chosen as the new vice chairman, while David Russell, of East Lothian Council, became its secretary and Jane Robson, from the Scottish Government, took over as treasurer.

The committee listing in full is as follows: William Ancell from Seafish; Emma Diamond from IAS SMARTS; Elaine Henderson based at West Lothian Council; Paula McNulty from Napier University; Sarah O'Loughlin from Amey; Alex Orr from Indigo PR; David Sawyer of Weber Shandwick; Ilya Scott of Real PR; and Kate Trussler from Platform PR.