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On the margin
Page 14
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IN THE NEWS
Stuart Thomas gives us his regular round-up of the way
the newspapers have covered the transport industry this week.
Any hopes which Ruby Wax might have harboured about her recent death-on-stage at the Freight Transport Association's annual dinner remaining solely within the four walls of London's Hilton Hotel were dashed as soon as the attending Daily Mail hack Usg-F: left the building. a .
Two days after Wax had created an admittedly morgue-like atmosphere at the prestigious event, the gossip columnist on the national spread the word on Wax's woe. He then happily set about assassinating her performance for the second time in a week— though this time, without the American's help.
The comedienne was paid £1 0,000, the paper reliably informed us, to speak at the dinner, but failed to raise a smile throughout her 45-minute slot. The speech was reportedly so exorable that it even prompted FTA chief exec Richard Turner to apologise to guests afterwards.
Laughably, the paper reported that the 900 businessmen at the dinner were "too polite" to tell Wax that the legendary Jimmy 'Tarbie' Tarbuck was much funnier than her (oh, the shame) when he did the job last year. Really? Isn't this the same group of people who were more than happy to forget their Ps and Qs and lambast the various transport ministers who have given speeches at the dinner in the past? Is our industry getting all coy on us?
Meanwhile, White Van Man is breeding... and evolving fast. The independent reported a 6% rise in light van traffic during the second quarter of this year. But WVM's stigma of being labelled a foul-mouthed neanderthal has also resulted in an increase in demand for other colours. Cue Silver Van Man, VVVM's successor. The paper quoted social psychologist Dr David Marsh as saying: "It [silver] has many positive associations.
SVM is telling us that he is a sterling kind of guy who is reliable.
trustworthy and up-to-date."
Best get those trucks spraypainted ASAP, With social psychologists such as Marsh around, you could solve the industry image crisis, competition crisis and possibly driver shortage crisis in one fell swoop. Marvellous.