The final account

West Brom woes for Working Lunch star

Adrian Chiles proved an entertaining host at Tuesday's Association for Project Mangement annual awards at the Savoy in Central London. The down-to-earth BBC TV and radio presenter provided an analogy between the project management profession and supporting his favourite football team to the gathering. “A friend of mine who knows about these things said project management was an absolute misery,” recounted Chiles. “There's enormous pressure and it's endlessly furstrating. A bit like watching West Brom play every week really.”

Standing on the shoulders of big beasts

Remember Stefan Allesch-Taylor? He was the giant (literally, he is 6 ft 8 tall) hyperactive entrepreneur who for some strange reason decided to buy up a 29% stake in MDA five years back and then announced ambitious plans to merge it with a rival then float it, which never happened. All very dramatic and strange at the time but we see he now has bigger fish to fry. The outspoken 36-year-old City financier is taking on no less a figure than failed Tory leadership candidate Ken Clarke. Apparently he was due to lay into Clarke’s management style at Savoy Asset Management’s AGM. “He is quite brutal,” he was quoted as saying to the Observer last weekend. Good to see Allesch-Taylor’s legendary diplomacy, which he displayed during all the boardroom shenanigans at MDA, is still in tact.

No pressure lads

Much political sensitivity surrounds the delayed and overrunning Dublin Port Tunnel. Not least that the ill-fated project, being built by a consortium that includes beleaugured contractor Mowlem, is in the parliamentary constituency of one Bertie Ahern, the Taoiseach. Word from over the Irish Sea is that if the tunnel is not completed before next year's upcoming general election, Bertie might be at risk of losing his seat. No pressure on the builders then.