Coffee shops are no place to learn life’s great stories
Harsh times at the Government’s Central Office of Information offices in Birmingham city centre. The alcohol police have gone mad.
The spin doctors have been banned from drinking at lunchtime so, instead of heading to the Old Joint Stock for a swift couple and a good gossip, it is now all prim and proper in some insipid local coffee shop - a dictum not going down well with some of the troops, I am told.
I don’t know … you’d think the pen-pushing bosses would have better things to do, like saving the economy.
Years ago, as part of their training, aspiring young journalists would be dropped in some village in the middle of nowhere and told to come back with half-a-dozen stories.
So you would hit the Post Office, the local shop, the vicar and the pub.
Essentially, nothing has changed today; forget about polling focus groups and all that baloney, there is no better place to learn about the world and its concerns than down the boozer.
--------------------------------
They say the market for city centre apartments has collapsed … so you would have thought Masshouse would be bending over backwards to make it easy for potential buyers.
Go to their website and you will find studio, one- and two-bedroom apartments available from £120,000 while there is a marketing suite “open 7 days a week from 10am to 6pm”.
Except if you try to dial the number, 0121 236 1115, as Bright did last week, you get a BT message saying: “This number does not receive incoming calls.”
Are they trying to sell these homes, or is just a secret society?
--------------------------------
Bright’s Cultural Attaché spotted Diane Benussi in the expensive seats for Birmingham Royal Ballet’s performance of Sylvia at the Hippodrome.
He was surprised, however, to note that Ms Benussi and companion did not make it back for the final act.
A cynic might suggest that she found it hard to identify with the subject matter of Delibes’ ballet – viz, that even the most dysfunctional relationship can be salvaged through the intervention of Eros, God of Lurrvv.
Which is not exactly the kind of message a prominent divorce lawyer like Ms B necessarily wants to be shared with the theatre-going classes!
--------------------------------
The wags are claiming that Derek Inman, boss of charity Birmingham Foundation, should really be in the pop music business.
They reckon Derek and the Foundations has definitely something going for it.
