Former RBS chief Sir Fred Goodwin 'threatened staff with disciplinary action over biscuit'

Having the wrong kind of biscuit served with his tea drove disgraced banker Sir Fred Goodwin to threaten catering staff with disciplinary action, according to a new account of the financial crisis written by Chancellor George Osborne’s former chief of staff.

The former boss of Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) vented his anger over the pink wafer in an email titled “Rogue Biscuit” in an example of his “overbearing” management style that may help explain the collapse of the bank in 2008, the new book claims.

Authors Matthew Hancock, who worked for Mr Osborne before becoming an MP himself in the last General Election, and Nadhim Zahawi, the founder of YouGov and a fellow Tory MP, have argued that the peculiar characteristics of key figures are vital to understanding the crisis.

Their book, Masters of Nothing: How the crash will happen again unless we understand human nature, calls for regulators and politicians to focus more on dominant characters to prevent dangerous financial exuberance in the future.

According to a piece published in Prospect Magazine on Thursday, the book includes an account of how RBS staff “went into panic mode” after a window cleaner fell off a ladder in Sir Fred’s office and broke a small model aeroplane. Recalling staff’s trepidation at explaining the accident to Sir Fred, Peter de Vink, managing director of Edinburgh Financial & General Holdings, claims they “were absolutely terrified of him”.

The authors reveal that Sir Fred “went so far as to refuse to allow his chief economist to attend the Select Committee hearing, until the chair of the committee was forced to call and explain that if he chose not to attend he would be summoned, with the full force of the police in reserve.”

All I Want is a Bounty

New Song, recorded tonight at gra n sarah's flat,, using his new strat with tremolo,, this song had to be sketched down on the mobile phone voice recorder as we didnt have vocal mic's available.. but the idea is there for future reference , we will hopefully use it to develop a song from this idea...

lyrics came from an imagined drive to Scotland, stopping off at a trailer park. hoping mostly to get hold of a bounty chocolate bar... some excellent guitar work from Gra here, incorporating his new fender mexican strat, with floyd tremeolo.. a comforting and slightly haunting song!

Save the Whale

I Have got the idea , from a John Shuttleworth song, to save the whale - i will make some whale shaped biscuits, using a whale shaped biscuit cutter I found and bought off ebay, and bring these along to the new art exhibition in portland hall spa:

Facebook Event

hopefully this will successfully raise awareness for saving the whale, i will put the whale biscuits up for sale at £50p each. then all the proceeds will go to the save the whale charity donations:

Save the Whale Webiste



if you would like to see the video of John Shuttleworth singing his song 'save the whale' just look here below!


John Shuttleworth - Save the Whale

- Getting the hang of cutting

   the dough

loads of whale shaped biscuits!
... should raise a few squid for the whales!

There may also be further whale biscuits available in the future, please contact us for details

Thanks!

and thanks to all the people who bought whales.. raised £40.00 for the whale

Reply

Hey fellas,

The hatstand looks cool. I haven't seen many here, so I can't give you any tips for the structure. Like with the music, I guess just going for it and trusting the flow goes way beyond any research as to 'wot is right'. Afterall everything we do (not just the music) should reflect who we really are. Part of that is original creative leading edge genius', so let the hatstand be that too, a work of original creative leading edge genius. That's my input.

As for blog writing, well I don't feel it right now. You know me, when I got something to say I'll say it. So it's not out of shyness or lack of enthusiasm that I don't blog about my current life. But I do appreciate your encouragement. It'd be nice to have a lot of interesting things to write in a blog post. Like meeting lots of biscuit fans, travelling the world, etc. So that's certainly my intention. I'd like to visit Thailand, maybe India (Kerala) and possibly kuaui, so I'm focusing on being in those places right now. I see this as a year of travels for sure, so I'll have no probs posting pics and thoughts. It's funny coz I could write a blog post out of this if it were not for my perception that viewers only care about the 'having done' part, as opposed to be 'intending to' part. Yet why should I care, when # 1 What other people think of me is none of my business (unless they're loving me, so I'll jump on that bandwagon, lol), and # 2 time and space is an illusion, so there is no difference between 'having done it' and 'intending to do it'. If I'm putting off blogging because I think nobody would be interested in what 'I'm intending to do' then equally I should not blog when 'I have done something'.
It is the 'putting off blogging' that is the core intention running things. If I 'intend to blog about my travels' with the realisation that there is no time and space, then, as that Crunchy Biscuits tune says 'Why wait?'

Oh I didn't, here I am! Hmm, I thought I was writing this in an email reply. Now I'm blogging it. I'm outta 'here'. I need some space!

Or do I?

Lemon.

The Lego Hatstand

Today we made a start on creating the new sculptural art piece, a hatstand made from lego, jason headed down to the waterfront art project space with a rucksack full of lego and, referring to the waterfront's own in house hatstand we began our journey modelling our own lego version.. we managed to sift through the lego we had and put our bricks into the beginning of the shaft and legs, scaled against the real thing, with some helpful input by waterfront artists as regards to accompanying the work with a lego hat, and umbrella, as well as some of the technical details involved in building. hopefully we will have this thing completed for the next exhibition, as well as collecting some sound files for an accompanying sound track and some video including real time noises of the lego being manipulated and live video from the creation of the hatstand! .. keep tuned for more progress over the coming weeks when we should have the finsished hatstand and video for the song 'got a hatstand, it's made of lego' (WEEK 4)


http://crunchybiscuitsblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/crunchy-catalogue-of-recordings.html

An Old Classic Biscuit related song...

UBUK launches key brand activities to drive snacking category sales in New Year

Date: 05-12-2011



United Biscuits (UBUK), has announced the first wave of activity for 2012. The plans include a first ever event sponsorship for McCoy’s, a promotion that will help retailers capitalise on the sales opportunity provided by the link between McVitie’s biscuits and hot drinks and a new Jacob’s brand extension designed to significantly increase savoury biscuits sales.

McCoy’s hits the bullseye with PDC darts sponsorship

McCoy’s are delighted to announce that it has embarked on a three year deal as the title sponsor of the McCoy’s Premier League Darts. The tournament sees the world’s top eight players – including the legendary Phil “The Power” Taylor, reigning Premier League Darts champion Gary Anderson and PDC World Champion Adrian Lewis - play each other over 15 weeks across the UK, including the Play-Offs in front of a packed house at The O2 in London. Additionally, McCoy’s will be a partner sponsor for all the other events under the PDC banner.

From February, McCoy’s will be announcing the sponsorship via an on-pack promotion that will feature on both handy packs and multipacks to increase awareness of the sponsorship. The packs will encourage consumers to go online to the McCoy’s website to be in with the chance of winning VIP tickets to the McCoy’s Premier League Darts Play-Offs by participating in the McCoy’s darts challenge.

What time is it? It’s Dunk Time!

To help retailers capitalise on the sales opportunity of linking hot drinks and biscuits, McVitie’s is launching ‘Dunk Time’ – a new campaign to encourage consumers to brighten up their brew and enjoy a biscuit with their cup of tea. A multi-faceted through-the-line campaign, including an interesting on pack promotion, will be launched to support McVitie’s Dunk Time. it promises to help retailers make the most of this opportunity to boost sales by cross-selling hot drinks and McVitie’s biscuits.

Featured on packs of McVitie’s biscuits from February, the Dunk Time promotion will encourage consumers to enjoy their hot cuppa or coffee with a tasty McVitie’s biscuit by giving away over one million Dunk Time branded ‘mega mugs’. Consumers can have a chance to win one instantly by simply entering a unique code online on the McVitie’s VIP Club website (www.mcvities.co.uk/vipclub) or by collecting 45 points as part of their membership to the loyalty scheme, which was launched in 2010.

The three month campaign will also include a national radio partnership to promote the activity on stations, such as Magic FM, BRMB and Key103FM. The promotion will be advertised across digital, radio and print channels together with competitions to win holidays to destinations such as Sri Lanka, Kenya and Switzerland. There will be an experiential sampling team to bring Dunk Time to life in high footfall areas, offering consumers the chance to win biscuits to be delivered to their offices.

UB will be supporting retailers with a heavyweight activation programme, including eye-catching shippers and POS materials that will enable retailers to cross-sell McVitie’s products with hot drinks and drive awareness of the promotion.

Grabbing a larger share of savoury market with new snack range

With savoury biscuits representing a fantastic opportunity for retailers to grow sales, UB is launching Jacob’s Oddities, a brand new range of bite-sized savoury biscuits, to grow the UK savoury biscuit market.

Available from March, Jacob’s Oddities is an irresistibly light and crispy, baked snack biscuit. The tasty bite sized snacks come in an amusing mix of unexpected shapes with no artificial colours or flavours. The range comprises of two delicious flavours, Cheese and Smoky Bacon and is available in multipacks of five x 25g packs (MRRP £1.75), 125g sharing packs (MRRP £1.42) and 30g on-the-go packs (59p).

The launch will be supported in 2012 by TV, poster, online and radio advertising, plus sampling and in-store activation.

Strong launch to 2012

Jon Eggleton, Marketing Director, UBUK, commented:

“We have a strong 2012 marketing plan, as always, which will ensure that we drive sales across our biggest brands.

“Darts has become increasingly popular in recent years and our partnership with the PDC is the perfect platform for McCoy’s ‘Real Man’ positioning

“Jacob’s Oddities has been developed on the back of the most rigorous consumer research. There is a huge opportunity to grow the savoury biscuits market, particularly with an established brand that is providing a range of new tasty snack biscuits. The launch of Oddities will accelerate the growth of the savoury biscuits category by attracting new, younger consumers through this fun and engaging new product.

Jacob’s Oddities will develop this segment of the UK’s savoury biscuit category and provide retailers with a new opportunity to grow their sales of savoury biscuits.

“McVitie’s latest VIP Dunk Time promotion highlights the massive opportunity presented by cross selling biscuits and hot drinks. 86% of McVitie’s biscuits are eaten with a drink, but only 8% of drink occasions featuring a biscuit, so there is another big growth opportunity for retailers. This engaging Dunk Time promotion will help retailers to sell to those people that aren’t having a treat with their hot drink and will encourage them to purchase biscuits more often.”

Source: AC Nielsen w/e 08.10.11