Sun 2 Mar 2008
Sex and chocolate
Now I've got your attention, how's this for coincidence? No sooner had we sent one of our team to interview Grant 'Flake Gate' Bovey from Imagine Homes than we discover it is the 40th anniversary this month of what has been dubbed "Britain's sexiest chocolate advert".The Flake commercial quickly became an advertising icon as the Cadbury's Flake girl nibbled on the chocolate bar. The first Flake girl Holma MacDonald, 22 at the time, said: "I was young and very naive. We did all these takes and I had no idea it was meant to be a phallic symbol."
Yeah right.
A new Flake commercial is out starring soul diva Joss Stone as the face of 'Britain's crumbliest flakiest chocolate'. Those who remember the original - not young Squirrel obviously - are the generation who still call Starbursts Opal Fruits. Altogether now, "made to make your mouth water!" Whoops. Giveaway.
On the head 'sohn
Only Trevor Abrahmsohn, flamboyant founder of estate agency Glentree Estates, who sells Hampstead trophy houses to the obscenely rich, could land former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev as a guest of honour. Glentree was celebrating 30 years of business, during which time they have sold squillions of pounds worth of massive mansions in North London. It seems anything with an eight figure price tag in the capital gets snapped up by Russians, so Gorbachev would have felt very at home at the Glentree party, with many purchasers and vendors raising a glass to Abrahmsohn.
"President Gorbachev carries out very few public engagements in this country. His fascinating rendition of life from peasant background to Soviet leader and to the greatest living political visionary of the last century left the guests spellbound," said Abrahmsohn. Now Trevor, originally from South Africa, is the high priest of hyperbole, but "greatest living political visionary of the last century"? What about Nelson Mandela? Or Yvette Cooper?
My invitation was obviously lost in the post or intercepted by the KGB, but apparently I missed out on "the finest Iranian caviar washed down with Dom Perignon". Beats the warm Muscadet and sausage on a stick I am usually offered at housebuilders' show home openings. The party was held at the Toprak Mansion, which Glentree sold to Horelma Peramam for £50 million. High price to pay for a refurb job, with the Kazakhstan billionaire looking to spend £30 million doing it up. Genuflecting before his guests Abrahmsohn said: "Having the privilege of Mr Gorbachev attend was the birthmark on the forehead." Sorry. "The icing on the cake."
Cracked it
XBond, only hatched last year, is going great guns with its Zurich Property Deposit Guarantee, negating the need for a cash deposit when buyers exchange contracts on a new build property. Several top housebuilders have embraced the scheme and executive chairman of the XBond Company Paul Gratton must be chuffed to bits. He is also probably rather relieved he is no longer chief executive of Egg, the internet bank, who committed the marketing foot shooting episode of the year (and it is only March) by cancelling the cards of 160,000 customers it claimed were bad credit risks. Gratton has a fascinating CV, including an early spell at Midland Bank, where he helped create First Direct.
Out to grass?
John Calcutt, the former boss of Crest Nicholson and English Partnerships, talked so much sense in his Calcutt Review about how the three million new homes demanded from the Government by 2020 could be delivered it seemed too good to be true. It seems it is. According to The Daily Telegraph's City diary, Calcutt, speaking at a recent British Property Federation dinner, said, when asked how his tome had gone down with the Government: "I've heard nothing since November. I am in limbo. I am just waiting for the whole thing to be given the Sir Humphrey boot into the long grass." Let us hope Calcutt, one of the industry's great and wittiest orators, was joking.
Cannes do attitude
Yet again anybody who is anybody in property and a fair few who are not are off to the industry's second greatest annual networking event (the greatest is of course The What House? Awards) MIPIM in Cannes. Ask anybody for a meeting in March and the answer is: "Sorry Squirrel old tree rodent. In the south of France. Got a series of long lunches, sorry, long business briefings, lined up. You can get me on my BlackBerry or on somebody else's yacht." Apparently Jason Leonard is going to be in Cannes, so don't go kicking sand in his face down La Croisette. Actually aside from what restaurant to dine in or party to blag your way into, most of the chat beside the Mediterranean is usually about rugby. Indeed Leonard, as well as wearing his Wyse Group hard hat, is one of the hosts of Victor Ubogu's MIPIM Rugby Lunch, with the hospitality package including "a gastronomic experience with fine wines and beers". Who'd have thought it?
First published in Show House Magazine March 2008.
The greatest care has been taken to ensure accuracy but some information contained within this article may have changed since it was first published.
Posted by Secret Squirrel
in Crest Nicholson, English Partnerships, Glentree Estates, Imagine Homes, Jason Leonard, John Callcutt, Secret Squirrel, Trevor Abrahmsohn, XBond Company on Sun 2 Mar 2008
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