Happy Hatters
After disgruntled residents of Luton featured on last week’s Diary page, we’re pleased to note some good news for the town this week, particularly its football supporters. The local council has approved plans for a new 17,500-seat stadium for Luton Town FC, as part of a 40‑acre town centre regeneration. A great day for the Hatters, no doubt, but chief executive Gary Sweet may be getting carried away, telling BBC Look East: “It is probably the biggest moment in the history of Luton Town FC.” Now hold on there. Some of us remember the last-minute winner in the 1988 Littlewoods Cup final.
Crunch moment
Every year on the Cycle to MIPIM, awards are handed out for riders’ colossal feats of effort, their role as a team player and – because something always happens – the best mechanical faux pas. This year (on the Folkestone route) that award went to a rider who took some time to do some stretching and put his helmet down “just for a minute” – right in front of the MIPIM bus. He heard the crunch just as he bent down to lengthen his hamstrings. No, it wasn’t a muscle pinging, it was the bus, rolling over his helmet. Of course, that had to be the winner. So, on the penultimate evening, he was crowned “best breakdown”. And, within five minutes, the trophy was broken. True to form at least.
Suits blue, sir
It really says something when a grey suit looks like an act of sartorial rebellion. But this year’s MIPIM offered a sea of blue suits on a truly unprecedented scale. For Mark Slaughter, director general for investment at the Department for International Trade and formerly of HSBC, the conformity seemed too much. “I’ve swapped my banker’s pin stripe for something… just dismal,” he told EG’s UK Cities session, flicking the lapel on his suit. Yes, a blue one.
The downside of data?
How times have changed at MIPIM. No longer is it enough just to say good came of the event; these days all returns have to be measurable. So much so than one delegate was warned by a colleague ahead of his trip: “Remember: what happens at MIPIM, stays in Salesforce.”
#London
Forget London Calling, nowadays, it’s London tweeting, sharing, ’gramming… Yes, our capital’s social media game is strong, according to new research by built environment communications firm ING. Its Europe’s Most Talked about Cities report has London at number one for online visibility. Totting up social media and online news mentions, ING put Paris just behind, and between them the dominant top two shared almost a third of the online conversation for the entire top 40 – a rundown which also includes fellow UK cities (in order) Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Edinburgh. “Visibility matters to cities, influencing investment, where talent concentrates and whether we decide to visit or not,” says Leanne Tritton, managing director at ING. “The challenge is to ensure the quality of conversations happening across all forms of media – including digital – helps each city to not just climb the rankings, but also activates its unique story.” With Brexit uncertainty lingering, fingers crossed the online story that’s got people talking so much isn’t “look at that mess in London”.
No reservations
If it’s a casual lunch on the beach you are after at MIPIM, here’s a tip: don’t book. When EG met up with KPMG UK’s Andy Pyle and Eden Dwek this week, we winged it. No booking, no problem… if you don’t mind eating lunch “on a mattress”. This is the rather clumsy French-English translation for a sun lounger dining spot. And while it was a bit less horizontal than the mattress description suggested, it was certainly a far less formal approach to a business meeting than we are used to. And why not? When in Cannes…
Are you being burgled?
One of the joys of Diary is the flood of property-adjacent press releases – topics that aren’t quite what we’re here for but are diverted here all the same. So when an e-mail arrives from Fasthomes titled “REVEALED: The typical profile of a burgled property in England”, we’re going to open it. Fasthomes used figures from the Office for National Statistics, and, to cut short the findings, if you are male, aged 45-54, work in a managerial/professional occupation and live in a semi-detached house in a suburban area with no security system, you’re going to get burgled. In fact, you’re probably being burgled as you read this…
Yes we canapé
Networking and finding food are the main preoccupations for any journalist at MIPIM. Exclusive dinner invitations are not easy to come by, but Diary got lucky via a chocolate canapé. As the sticky confection began oozing through our fingers and onto the floor, one tall chap with a sprained ankle gallantly picked it up. Whoever said there were no gentlemen at MIPIM? The good fortune didn’t end there, thanks to the PR who found the situation so amusing that he promptly invited Diary to an industry dinner. Awkward moments can mean opportunities in Cannes.
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