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Last night on Newsnight there was an item about `Indicitive Votes` in Parliament ...

... Bring back Paxman - all is forgiven!

malone

Do you read the Daily Mail? I dont but I have just seen last Saturday's. On the City page, a headline caught my eye - Co-op link to Tesco.
I remembered you discussing this possibility a few weeks ago, and you invented the CoCo brand. It seems it is not a merger but Co-op are taking over a small Co following the Tesco model (whatever that is).

So as you are so good at predicting the future, would you please let me know this Saturday's winning Lottery numbers.

Grunger, thanks for your supermarket sweep, keeping us up to date on what's happening in the world of mergers and acquisitions. Your timing was good as I'd just spent the whole morning discussing this very subject. There were some important people at the meeting. You may have heard of them - Tess Co, Mark Sand-Spencer and Al Dee. We were disappointed that the Tesco and Co-op merger now seems unlikely. The CoCo brand attracted a lot of favourable comments at a recent focus group.

NB. As for your comment about me supplying you with Saturday's winning lottery numbers - I should Coco(a)!

I'm looking at aTV onscreen listing:
"Secrets of the National Trust"...with Alan Titchmarsh. Alan returns to take viewers behind closed doors at some of the wonderful sights owned by the National Trust.

I suppose he could argue that they are "wonderful sights" too (though I don't suppose that he personally wrote the heading).

Thanks, ChrisE - I hate slapdash things such as that, errors that should have not got through.

malone

That is interesting. I did not know you were involved with the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA). Sand-Spencer and Dee sit on the Retail sub-committee as "experts" while Lady Coe and a few others, including you, are independent, seeking to protect the interests of customers. You are doing a great job.

Were you in the chair?

grunger

I didnt know Malone was on the CMA. She is certainly an active member of the other CMA, Cant Move Apostrophes. Other members are a Yorkshireman, a crossword compiler and a couple of garden centre enthusiasts.

Were you looking in at this thread a couple of months ago? There was a lot of confusion regarding the 2 CMAs. Malone and I did some analysis of "Sainsbury's" and their use of other names Sainsburys'/Sainsburys etc. We sent this to the CMA and soon after, the deal with Asda was rejected. The Chief Exec of Sainsbury's was furious, and criticised our analysis as "fundamentally flawed", and referred to the "inaccuracy and lack of objectivity".

He had to apologise for confusing the 2 CMAs. The final verdict on Sada will be given soon. Malone will not leak it of course.

Thanks, Jigjag and Grunger. Yes, it's unfortunate that there are two such august bodies with the same initials, CMA. Still, that's better than the initials, acronym, previously offered by an obviously off-form member of PU - she suggested we should be the Campaign for the Removal of Apostrophes in Plurals. That would hardly have reflected well on us, though I think it would've ensured that we received plenty of media coverage for any of our initiatives.


Grunger, I wasn't in the chair at the meeting - it was standing room only.

malone

your joke reminded me of an organisation I once worked for. They had "standing committees" and I told one "chairman" that his position was untenable as he was out of line with the other members. I advised him to "stand" for re-election. He was rather offended until the joke was explained to him.

Malone

Yes I remember when PU discussed the name you suggested. The name might have offended PUrists but as you say, the media would have loved it. I think the voting was 50/50 and you gave your casting vote.

Grunger's posting reminded that I have worked for a company who had a Corporate Re-organisation Action Plan, and another with a Key Result Area Programme. Neither was flushed with success.