This booze bill is snow joke!
More tales of snowstorms in Switzerland - this time Midlands businessman Simon Eccleston getting his own back on chum Glyn Pitchford.
Regular Bright readers who glanced at last week's column will have read a missive from Pitchford telling how he had agreed to meet up with Simon, and taking the mick out of the lad's skiing ability, or perhaps, inability.
But Pitchford did have the decency to admit to stinging Simon for the booze bill as the global credit crunch found the usual hole in his pocket.
Naturally, Simon has his own version of events. He emails John Duckers, business editor of this organ and Bright's vicar on earth, stating: "The reason we met in Davos is that we were both at a CBI lunch recently where the sponsors parsimoniously provided only yellow wine - the Rev Duckers would understand!
"As we were at Clive Stone's emporium I found a way to buy a £20 bottle of vaguely decent wine which Glyn and I shared with a certain young lady."
Naughty!
But he goes on: "The agreement was that we would meet at a Davos mountain restaurant where he would correct the wine balance.
"The fact that he arrived an hour after my skiing party had started lunch lead to even more wine being ordered than expected - only a two-thirds bottle mind you! When it came to him paying, my wife Penny, had to help him off with his kit only to find him hiding what was little more than a ten bob note. His wife Maggie must be pretty tough to allow him so little pocket money."
And, as for Pitchford's skiing ability, Simon is disparaging.
"Unfortunately his embarrassing crump in the blizzard later was not photographed. When I elegantly skied across to help him, camera in hand, he was up and off like a rabbit, fluffy tail and all."
I like it.
Glyn "Bunny" Pitchford it is from now on then!
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John Duckers, Bright's vicar on earth, has gone and put his big foot in it again.
There he was on the touchline watching Selly Oak eventually gain a hard-earned victory over Bishop's Castle amidst a massive crowd of about six.
A game incidentally only enlightened by the extraordinary moment when the Selly Oak kicker informed his Bishop's Castle counterpart that he couldn't borrow his tee - leading the latter to miss a sitter of a conversion from in front of the post.
A somewhat ungentlemanly thing to do, but effective because it cost the latter two points.
Anyway, Duckers, whose son was playing hooker for Selly Oak, started chatting to the equally ancient father of another member of the team.
And the two were getting on famously until out onto the next door pitch came Moseley Colts and Barkers Butts under 18s to play a game.
Which prompted Duckers, who had seen more than one punch-up between them down the years, to remark how the Coventry side were always one of the dirtiest bunch of b******s you could find on a rugby field anywhere in the world.
To which the reply was: "I am a vice president of Barkers Butts."
Oops!
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Here is another chance for professionals in Birmingham to pretend they are really just as good as Jonny Wilkinson.
Last year 14 corporate teams including King Sturge, Jones Lang Lasalle, Cobbetts, Eversheds and Knight Frank, took part in the inaugural Pro-Tag Corporate Tag League.
This year's event will take place on Tuesday evenings starting on May 6 and running through to finals night on June 24.
It will be on the rubber crumb all-weather pitch at Moseley's Billesley Common ground.
The competition will be split into two pools - one for serious taggers who want a more competitive match out of the office and one for social taggers who want - how shall we describe it - a "more relaxed and enjoyable experience". Hopefully the bar will be open.
The winners will have complimentary use of a corporate box for a Moseley home game next season.
More information can be found on line at www.pro-tag.co.uk or alternatively interested parties can contact Gareth Taylor on 0752 807 6142.
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She always was the creative type but it seems Beverley Nielsen had hidden literary talents that never really came to the fore in her time as boss of the CBI in the West Midlands.
As a director of Fired Earth, she has turned her quill to describing the "palette" of colours that accompanies their paint range.
Colours that Bright would call light grey or slightly darker grey acquire the nomenclature "plumbago" and "antimony".
"Dragon's Blood" pretty much speaks for itself, if you are of the dragon slaying persuasion but as for "Pale Saxifrage" or "Carragheen" - your guess is as good as mine!
But let Beverley explain more, as she does so eloquently in the sleeve notes to the colour chart.
"Colour - an experience unique to each of us and a unique form of self expression. Something so fundamental that through the millennia, colour has been used to transform our environment and to elevate our spirit from the mundane.
"From the earliest times this has driven our quest for the elements of colour. Using pigments found in minerals, earth, plant and animal fibres we have been able to use colour both to shape our daily lives and as a 'doorway to the divine'.
"Fired Earth has revisited the roots and origins underlying this story of colour alchemy. The elements of colour palette finds its inspiration in these natural, historic and cultural sources - elemental discoveries which have transformed our capacity to define our individuality."
And so on . . . and on . . . and on. And you thought it was just paint!
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PKF's avuncular tax partner Simon Littlejohns, not widely suspected as being of a romantic disposition, has been caught out.
When the 125 members of the Solihull Business Discussion Group were circulated details of the next meeting, Littlejohns was first in with his "apologies for absence".
It seems the star crossed lover wouldn't be able to make the meeting on the evening of February 14. He was off home to spend Valentine's with his wife!
All together now ... aaaaaw!
