Roger Cashman

Downtown profile

2011-12-17T02:28:00.000-08:00

These muppets at Downtown Manchester made me businessman of the year and asked me to do a profile. Here it is.

Name: Roger Cashman

Company: RC Solutions

Position: Main man

Company Website Address: RC SOLUTIONS

Red Or Blue: Both, I love soccer ball, me. And Sale Sharks.

An Elected Mayor For Manchester:Isn’t that what Sir Howie Blingstein does?

Favourite Bar/Restaurant: The Stag in Great Warford, or TheMere

What's Your Tipple: Champagne,proper good gear and all

Which Business Person Do You Most Admire: Best dead one: Thelate Mark Langford (RIP). Best living: LawrenceJones.

Favourite Band: The elastic one round my wad

Top Tune: Simply the Best

Favourite Book: My chapter in Tickover or Takeoff by CarolineHampson

Favourite Movie: Goodfellas

Who Would Play You In A Film: Daniel Craig, obviously (his Dadis a good pal of mine)

Favourite TV Programme: Secret Millionaire, when I was on it

Most Visited Website: CheshireCompanions

Facebook Or Twitter: Both a total waste of time @rogercashman

Snog, Marry, Avoid!: Tara Reid, Susanna Reid, Peter Reid

Interesting Fact About You: I have fought off more industrialtribunals and county court judgements than anyone in Alderley Edge

Why Downtown: Watch out for Downtown Alderley in 2012

Wake up to Money - wake up to Roger

2011-12-02T00:01:00.001-08:00

As you know I’ve long been a massive supporter of the BBC and the move to Salford Quays. I don’t hold with this view that they can’t get guests on the radio programmes because all the important people are in London. That’s rubbish. Politicians might be based in the big smoke, but no-one wants to listen to them.

I actually told the top man at the BBC that it’s time to have more northern voices on the wireless. Especially northern BUSINESS voices. Why is it that self-made businessmen on TV are always cockneys – Sugar, Theo? Even Mike Baldwin was one.When I went on Secret Millionaire, all the other lads in the series were soft southerners. The reason my Burnley adventure came across so badly was because TV types are all art school ponces who didn’t get my wicked northern sense of humour. As if it was a serious suggestion to set up a whites-only taxi business called Union Jack Cabs! Joke, right! As I was texting my good pal Jezza Clarkson last night, that's the problem with this country, no sense of humour.

That’s all going to change when I start my new slot on the radio. I'm going to be taking over from that Mickey Clarke geezer on Wake Up To Money on the BBC Radio Five Live. And believe you me, we won’t be wasting time warbling on about gilts, bonds and pork bellies. Oh no. The Cashman view of life will be REAL BUSINESS. You know, the true entrepreneurial beating heart of the British economy – accident claims brokers, property development, call centres, IT assurance and coupons.

So, next time you go to Salford Quays you can see a massive picture of me next to Gary Lineker and that fit one off the BBC News (Susanna Reid, she’s called, and yes, you would).

As you know, I’m no stranger to a media profile – people are forever coming up to me in San Carlo and saying “are you THE Roger Cashman? We thought you were a spoof.” Well, pal, I say, clearly I'm not and the joke’s on you now. But, to be fair, I’m getting used to it. The trouble is, some of my so-called celeb pals are getting hacked off with my superstar A list status.I was out with my good mate Austin Healey the other week – we’ve got some investments together in China – and even though he’s been on the telly doing that dancing and he’s played a bit of rugby in his day, I swear more people werestopping to talk to me. These are the circles I move in nowadays. A star can only rise once, then it fades, Austin. And this is my time.

It all takes me back to the day I’d been out with Freddie Flintoff, Michael “Vorni” Vaughan and my great mate Paul “Becky” Beck. We took one of Becky’s choppers down to these celeb awards in London. All the paparazzi were there, camped outside clicking like mad. Next day, we were all over the papers. I’ve still got the cutting from one of them. The caption read: “pictured left to right, cricketers Andrew Flintoff and Michael Vaughan with Peter Jones from The Apprentice.”

In your dreams Jonesy, in your dreams.

Simmo – the JR Ewing of the North West

2011-11-10T14:19:00.000-08:00

You’ll never guess who popped onto my BlackBerry the other day – Andrew “Simmo” Simpson. Talk about a blast from the past. He’s a proper good lad, who is always welcome on any night out with me and my merry band.

He’s always guaranteed to liven up a ski trip or a quiet night in the Metropolitan.

And now? Well, strap yourselves in, for he’s offering us a stake in opening up oil wells – it’s got to be a winner. For those of you who don’t know him, Simmo was running Rothschilds in Manchester for a bit. Then he got headhunted to go and flog a few Portakabins and cement mixers for John Brown over at Speedy Hire.

He did such a boss job doing that before you could say Everything Must Go, he was put in charge of the Trafford Centre and a few of Johnny boy Whittaker’s odds and ends. I don’t know if it was Simmo’s idea, but I like that big chandelier they have over the food area – it looks brilliant. You can’t underdo bling in a shopping centre.

As well as being a business guru, he’s also a political masterplanner. Simmo single handedly fought the No campaign against banning cars from Manchester back in 2008. To be fair, there was no chance it was ever going to win a vote of the general public, but Simmo’s debating skills properly rattled the socialists at the council.

I heard he then got tapped up by the Tories to be one of David Cameron’s blue-eyed boys at the last election.

As well as getting Tory tottie like Susie Williams, Esther McVey and Louise Bagshawe (she writes smutty books that Dorises like), “Dave” also wanted strapping lads like the one who thinks he’s Laurence of Arabia, Rory Stewart, now the laird of Penrith. Wisely, in my view, Simmo gave that a swerve.

He flogged Liverpool airport for JW, then like that, whoof, he was gone.

We all thought he’d joined MI5, or something.

Then, out of the blue, a few of the lads, me included, started getting emails. He’s got this nailed on investment opportunity that is pure genius. He’s opened up all these oil wells in Texas that Digger Barnes, JR Ewing and Red Adair gave up on when life was easier. Now that oil is soaring in price, Simmo has been drilling for dear life and wants us to pile in with him.

Have a look for yourselves here at the website. The Falcon has well and truly landed.

Unbelievably, some of the lads are saying they think it’s a bit racy. I’ve even heard the tired old excuse of the wimpy investor – sounds good, but it’s not really for me. Come on, grow a backbone!

It’s one of those deals that just gets my pulse racing. It’s risky, edgy, and it’s in oil and gas. I will be writing a cheque for a cheeky half mill. We simply cannot fail with good old-fashioned non-renewable energy.

MY MATE GARRY COOK: A MAN OF VISION

2011-10-10T09:55:00.000-07:00

Once again, the knives have been out and once again the right-on, politically correct bleeding heart liberal do-gooder brigade have brought about the downfall of a good man. A man of vision.

I have to say that over the years he was at Manchester City I got to know Garry Cook pretty well. He was a man I not only grew to admire, but also to like, and I don’t say that about many people. I’ve been on my fair share of Man U corporate away trips over the years and am now looking forward to going on a few City trips now that success has come to our other local soccer club, Manc City, as they call them. That he should be booted out because a bit of banter was taken in the wrong way is a crying shame.

It’s the hypocrisy I can’t stand – who among us can honestly sit there with a straight face and say they’ve never mistakenly sent a private email to the wrong punter? People should take it in good faith – you weren’t meant to see it, so just forget about it. Admittedly, the courts see it differently sometimes – I’m still paying off at least three ex-RC Solutions “people” after tribunals returned verdicts against yours truly – but as a business owner, it was never going to cost me my job, it just upped the premiums on the insurance.

Frankly, I bought into Garry’s vision for the Blue Mancs Soccer Army (as they are known on the streets), or The Project as “Cookie” called it. We were in line to do a load of the solutions stuff – he was big into using local companies and all that.

I remember once “GC” and me were having a round of golf with Dr Thaksin, the old City owner and another great guy – and I had this idea. “Why don’t you build a zone around the stadium for the fans? Call it a fanzone,” I said.

“I like it,” said “Gazza”. The rest, as they say, is now the stuff of legends. Another night, me and the lads were in Rosso and I got talking to this young Arab lad. He wanted to know what we thought of City, and “GarCo” and all the rest of it. It turned out this lad was the Great Sheikh himself, he tipped me the wink on all kinds of plans they’ve got for Manchester. Out of respect I can’t mention it, though to be fair, I got that bladdered I can only remember about half anyway. All I know is it’s a crime “The Cookmeister” won’t be there to see his vision through.

I’m not blaming the lass who got the email. It’s the press, once again, that made a mountain out of a molehill and caused all this. After the MP expenses non-story and the Murdoch tosh, I’m tiring of it. If Thaksin ever gets back in control of Thailand, consider me gone.

Reading the riot act

2011-10-10T09:50:00.000-07:00

So there I was, tucked in nicely at the bar in a discreet gentleman’s club – I’m not telling you where if you’re not ITK – watching the footage of the riots taking place in Manchester and some place called Salford when the old light bulb went off – not the red one in the window, either.
In case you don’t know, the BBC is moving shedloads of their muppets up to Salford Quays next year, after Johnny Whittaker (great lad, by the way) pulled off the deal of a lifetime and royally narked off Sir Howie Bernstein in the process. All good fun. Being a Murdoch loyalist, I don’t hold much truck with the BBC myself – it’s full of Communists, puddle jumpers and, worst of all, liberals – but there’s an opportunity here for a connected mover and shaker like myself.

It strikes me that the skinny latte-drinking BBC types would have been watching the footage of little kids robbing plasma tellies and trainers bold as brass and, frankly, started to rust their armour about exactly what they’ve signed up for here.

But they can’t all back out and find a job elsewhere, the pensions are too cushy for one thing. What they need is reassurance of safety; that they can get from work to home without being knifed by some little ninja. And I can help.

Here’s the plan: an underground shuttle from the heart of MediaCity (I’ve been checking up on this, that’s ACTUALLY what it’s called) right into the heart of Hale, possibly with a stop in Chorlton, as there are bound to be some hippies along with the overstuffed management class. Absolute winner.

Yes it’s true, RC Resi Devs plc has never before attempted an “infrastructure project” but how hard can it be, really? We’d never done a golf course until we got chatting to the oil boys from Kazakhstan at MIPIM one year, and that went like a dream.

I know that Metrolink’s taking years to build but to me that’s just typical public sector fannying about. I plan to take my inspiration from the Burma railroad, built in no time at all by virtue of good honest toil and firm but fair management.

That’s it folks, it’s time to bring back the chain gangs. We could even get them orange jumpsuits and those suits with the arrows on so everyone can see that we’ve given them jobs. No hoods either, kids. Best of all, I’ll be putting out a few feelers as to what kind of grants are available to hire the sort of no-good scrote who’s landed himself with a few thousand hours of community service for being daft enough to rob alcopops in the full glare of CCTV.

Scrote labour, it’s the future. Really, society is very lucky to have men of vision like me ready to give these kids a chance and make the world a safer place.

How NOT to buy a football club

2011-08-15T13:33:00.000-07:00

So, there I was in Wings in Manchester. Top gaff, great food, the owner Wing, is a massive pal of mine. If you look at the mural on the wall, my company logo is on the back of a rickshaw being pulled along by some kids.

He’s got these plates in frames on the wall that all the big hitters sign for him. Mine, signed by me, is next to one from the American soccer lad Brad Freidel and the fat one out of Take That. Quality.

Anyway, these lads pile in, reckoning they want to buy a football club, and they weren’t particularly choosy either. Obviously they know I’m the kind of go-getting wheeler dealer that can make these kind of deals happen – it was me, as you know, that put Michael Knighton into United. I suggested to Ali Ahsan Syed that he should sniff around Blackburn before the chicken mob beat him to it. And whatever these football rabble like to pretend these days – Leeds fans have me to thank for introducing Peter Ridsdale to soccer.

So I make a few suggestions which they turn their noses up at Stockport (basket case), Rochdale (doing a bit too well) and Oldham (too cold).

I also said they might want to have a chat to another good pal of mine, Bryan Robson, the former England captain, a global ambassador for the Manchester United Corporation and the main guy in GVA Robson Lloyd, a property outfit.

To be fair, I forgot all about it until this fuss kicked off about a programme on Channel 4. That’s not a channel I watch much, in fact, I thought it had closed down when Big Brother finished. But there you go.

I was disgusted. There these chancers were with hidden cameras in the Man U bar in Bangkok chatting up Robbo and pretending to be football investors. For the life of me I can’t see what he’s meant to have done wrong, apart from suggesting Sheffield United. He had this Thai lad Mr Joe, who they were making out on telly wasn’t all that. Well, to me he seemed a man very much after my own heart: big hitter, loaded, loves the soccer, likes his nosh, and is a big pal of Sir Alex Ferguson. What’s not to like?

I’m thinking I must look him up when I’m next in Bangkok, but here lies the problem. Every time some sharp talking lad from Britain pitches up, they’re going to think we’re some undercover jockey from Channel 4 or The Guardian. I don’t think we can understate the destructive effect the media is having on the reputation of British entrepreneurs around the world. Frankly, it’s time they were shut down for good.

NEVER TRUST A TECHIE

2011-06-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

Cards on the table. Sir Lord Alan of Sugar isn’t a close personal friend. We’ve rubbed shoulders once or twice, sure, at various charity fundraisers (which you know I love) and big hitting business events. We’ve both advised the government on business. We may even have exchanged words in the directors box at City, United or somewhere – fact is, I can’t remember. But what I do know is this – Baron Sweetner was 100 per cent bang on the money when he told the nation that engineers are no good at business.

He’s had a bit of stick has Alan. First you’ve got that Luke Johnson, the Pizza Express bloke, even Loz Jones has piled in. And of course there are a few exceptions to this rule. Sir James “Jimmy” Dyson for one, who makes ace Hoovers, so our housekeeper reckons anyway. But does Jimbo really sit down in his shed messing about with bits of metal and pipe cleaners like some crackpot science geek? I doubt it.

Business is all about selling a dream. When you think of the titans of business- Branson, Buffett, Trump, Cashman – the similarities are obvious. We’re all good-looking, charismatic men that people will follow. Natural leaders and born sellers.

Frankly, there’s too much of that clever-clever “oooh I’ve been to university” bollocks about. Well not at RC Solutions. The last certificate I got was for swimming and I’ve not done too badly for myself. For me, the only qualification that counts is a degree from the University of Life and frankly, we’re a bit suspicious of the techies.

That little dot com bloke, Manoj Ranaweera (who’s alright, to be fair) – said to me: “Roger, surely you’re a solutions business, how come you’re so successful but you don’t understand technology?” You don’t need to know the first thing about all the technical gubbins, pal. If you can convince bankers that you’ve got the stones to make something work, they’re picturing their bonus before you’re even out of the door, cheque in hand.

Sales is where it’s at. You can have the greatest idea ever and more techy know-how than you can shake a stick at but if you can’t sell you’re stuffed. Our sales lads aren’t even allowed a chair at their desk until they hit a weekly target. It’s a competitive environment that weeds out the weak and rewards the strong – someone once said it was like Darwin in action, but I don’t hire Lancastrians either.

That’s when you hire some specky geeks and middle-aged virgins to actually do the work. These people don’t have the vision and ambition to be great businessmen – it’s men like me that make them what they are. It’s even better now, because Russian maths graduates are even cheaper. I love globalisation.

Yes, the bar at Panacea is littered with tech investors and their hard-luck stories, but some of us are very comfy in the booths – the winner’s enclosure of life.

The Cashman Business Club

2011-06-14T13:49:00.000-07:00

At last, now there is a business club for like minded lads

As any premier league entrepreneur will tell you, it can be lonely at the top. Nothing prepares you for the unbelievable decisions you have to make.

The art of good business is simple – crush your competitors, stitch up your suppliers, cream off as much as you can, avoid tax. It’s that simple, but there’s no guidebook you can buy in WH Smith’s that can tell you how to do any of that. And let’s face it, these are the big talking points with all the lads when we’re knocking a ball around Mere, wolfing down the pizza in San Carlo or necking a few lite ales in the Alderley Bar & Grill.

That’s why I’m setting up a new Cashman Business Club for like minded business lads who need some help but don’t know where to turn. There’s plenty out there who will give you advice, advisers for a start. But they all send you these things called bills, which, eventually you have to pay, unless the firm goes bust of course.

Obviously networking is going to play a massive part in it – golf days, motivational speeches from me and various other lads I can invite along – Brad Burton, some of the Dragons, that lad from the Isle of Man who got binned off the Apprentice and, as it’s me, I reckon I can get The Plumber to make a comeback.

But let me tell you what it won’t be. We won’t be using any of that Twitter stuff. I’ve been on it for a while and it’s a total waste of time. I ask you this: is Pete Cowgill on Twitter? Or Mike Oliver? Or Phil Black? Exactly. You can follow me on @rogercashman if you want, but frankly I just use it to wind up the Man United players and to procure a few of my various leisure interests. It’s just a bit of banter.

The Cashman Business Club is not political. We’re not going to be going cap in hand to the councils and the so-called coalition government looking for a grant. This is hard business for hardcore lads. But if someone wants to give me £35m to build a website like the Business Link one, be my guest.

The Cashman Business Club won’t be boring. It’s not going to be like all the other dull dreary business clubs with their brochures full of blather and a room full of recruitment consultants. We won’t force feed our members with bumpf, but we are looking for sponsors who may wish to reach 10,000 of the region’s leading senior business leaders.

The Cashman Business Club won’t have awards where only our members get to win. Oh no, all our members will be winners anyway.

And the Cashman Business Club will be just for lads. It’s only right. The Dorises have got their own networks now – Forward Ladies for one, but to be fair I followed them on Twitter because I thought they were something else entirely.

If you want to join in – if you’ve got something to contribute, get in touch.

And obviously we’ll raise a few quid for the sick kids.

My indecision is final

2011-05-09T13:46:00.000-07:00

Roger Cashman is not a man who pulls his punches. Unlike the woolly liberals and the bleeding heart dithering do-gooders who so often are inexplicably asked to share their opinions by media muppets, I’m a man who tells it straight and doesn’t hold back from baring his soul. But this month, I simply can’t make my mind up on a few things. Read on.

It all started when we were having a cheeky one in The Stag – celebrating Derek “Degsy” Lilley selling his software mob to private equity (ching ching) when one of the lads got a call from an insolvency jockey. Not Dermot Power, the lad with the bow ties who tried to sort Halliwell Landau out, but someone who inserts himself into these sort of deals – you know the type.

Without Dermot knowing, he let us have a peek at the Daily Sport – the thinking man’s newspaper. It’s been going down the tubes for a bit. Personally, I blame the BBC myself. Don’t know why, but everyone else blames them, and they did give that old Sport editor a job, you know who I mean, the scruffy one from Burnley (Tony Livesey, now a presenter at BBC Radio 5 Live – ed).

Next day, we were in. And you’ve never seen a due diligence data room like it.

We certainly sized up the figures, but not the ones our accountant looked at. In the editor’s filing cabinet we found these VHS videos the readers send in. You would not believe what these people do to each other. I have had to have my eyes bleached.

We then rattled through the so-called “reader’s letters” – apparently all the ones they printed are written by the staff – the real ones are – like the videos - literally unrepeatable. Certainly not fit to be repeated in a family publication.

Then we found out how they cooked up that whole “World War II Bomber Found On The Moon” story. They even had the Airfix model and a plastic blow-up moon (and many other inflatables too). Readers, I felt betrayed.

The business isn’t in great shape. The printers had them over a barrel, though thinking about it, there was a readers video involving shafting over a barrel, not that I’m obsessed. But it was too much, even for me. So I made my excuses and left.

Somalia
But, onwards and ever upwards. Someone must be able to work out a way of making a few quid out of the getting ships past these Somali pirate nutters.

There are two schools of thought, jaw or war. First, they’ve been at it a while now. Whoever’s running the show must need some wealth management advice, alternative investment solutions and, to be honest, if you wrap it up as a service you could even draft some standard documentation on ransoms and hostage fees.

The other idea is to start cracking a few heads. The South Koreans basically just blast the pirates out of the water. Result: their ships don’t get touched. For a basic fee we could get a squad of nutty Serbs and ex-squaddie Raoul Moat types, arm them to the teeth and fight fire with fire. Cashman’s Dogs of War. Worked in Iraq, didn’t it?

We’d charge up front fees to the shipping lines, obviously, and if it all goes wrong, there’s always the film rights. What do you reckon?

Horse Sense

2011-03-30T00:14:00.000-07:00

Oy oy! I’m back from Nam – Cheltenham, the biggest and best horse racing bash you can get, unless you’re really into orange Scouse birds who’ll do anything for the price of a blue WKD and a lift back from Aintree Ladies Day to a booth in the Newz Bar.

Won a few quid this year as it happens and we had a good laugh superglueing some lad’s head to one of those floppy Guinness top hats on St Paddy’s Day. It was all sorted in time for his wedding photos on the Saturday though, and his intended is apparently very understanding where such banter is concerned. It’s always about the banter, never forget that.

We didn’t have any runners at this year’s festival, which is probably for the best as you can relax and get bladdered, rather than fretting that the nag that’s just gone down like a sack of shit at the first fence is yours – all those yard fees for nothing. There’s a few tales of that sort of thing going on at the moment.

Word is a load of the Irish boys who’d gone in too deep on the property boom over there are having to have their horses shot. Actually buying horses isn’t a problem you see, especially in Ireland – the damn things are running all over council estates over there, like rats round a Rusholme kitchen.

The cost comes with getting a roof over their heads, hay in their bellies, and paying some little muppets to give them a bit of a test drive (probably not the technical term) every morning or whatever. It doesn’t come cheap, and as the Micks are all skint now and have to ask Angela Merkel for so much as a Euro pocket money, they’ve nowhere to turn but the gun.

There is an alternative. Not that I’m entering the market to buy any more nags – our little syndicate’s got more than enough on its plate with the glue factory candidates we already own, such as Flash the Cash and Rampant Roger.

But I’m brokering a deal in classic Cashman style. The French, as we all know, will eat anything and it just so happens I’ve been cultivating a contact in the meat trade there. He’s desperate to get his hands on as much cheap flesh as he can, so poor old Dobbin needn’t live a wasted life.

The logistics are looked after as well. I met a Geordie lad at MIPIM, who’s made a million by buying up old choppers and planes from the MoD. He reckons we can get more horses in one of those big troop carrier planes than die in the first lap of the National every year. The only thing we need to sort out is getting some cargo in for the return leg – and as much as the little devil on one shoulder whispers “Asylum seekers” I’m just too nice a guy to get involved.

If you go down in the woods today

2011-03-07T10:30:00.000-08:00

I’ve been stitched up by the so-called coalition government. A while ago me and a few of the Alderley boys – and some lads from the Ribble Valley we go shooting with - hatched a cunning plan that could have accelerated the government’s deficit reduction scheme. It would have been a job-creating enterprise and made better use of the land resource of this green and pleasant land. It would even have contributed to the tax take, because we were even going to register it here, and not in the Isle of Man (just this once).

One of the lads had a word with our MP, George Osborne. The plan, as you’d have guessed, was to let us run the forests. Great idea, we were told. Keep quiet, we’ll rush it through as a “consultation” and everything should have the green light in no time.

We were going to start with Grizedale Forest as a unique leisure destination, the first of its kind, and then a national roll out. Think Center Parcs for stag do’s: a casino, quad bikes, shooting, football, paintball, dirt bikes and hot tubs. Import a few rare species for specialist hunting, maybe even a few lions and elephants. And to crown it all, lap dancers around the camp fire – who could beat that?

We also wanted to set up a supply chain for a new network of wood burning power stations – you know the Chinese are doing that, don’t you? – and there will have been loads of grants for this sort of green stuff. We, George and the good old taxpayer would have been quids in.

But just because of a few tree huggers, and the usual lefty types who think the state has to run everything, all our investment and business planning is up in smoke, if you get my meaning.

To be honest with you, I think this lot are losing the plot. I still can’t get my head around this big society lark – giving money to charity? No problem. We all do that, and you don’t see a bigger supporter of sick kiddies than me. But apparently they want me to let our staff out early to do a bit of volunteering. Are you having a giraffe?

I don’t think they have any idea how hard it is to motivate a workforce like ours. Give them a bit slack, even for just a minute and they’ll be leaving on time every day. I didn’t build this business by helping old dears cross the road and running youth clubs – isn’t that what social workers do?

Things can only get bigger

2011-02-01T12:43:00.000-08:00

After the brutal downsizing of the past couple of years, the Cashman project is looking to expand again. As I might have explained, we sold the gaff in Majorca and a couple of city centre apartments, which means we’re down to just the house in Abersoch and our drum in Alderley Edge. Life has been tough, of that there is no doubt.

So now things are picking up again, I’ve decided we need a bit of an upgrade to reflect my profile and lifestyle opportunities. Mrs C agrees, obviously.

I’ve found this house that will do just fine. And it’s off-market so you can’t look it up, by the way. According to the details, it was built about 100 years ago in the style of the Arts and Crafts Movement – it has these turrets, pointy bits on the top and that black and white pattern – just like the very first starter home I bought in 1990 – a mock Tudor mansion in Bramhall.

Sounds good? Yes, well I levelled it. The bulldozers have been in and now we’ve got these diggers and excavators drilling down. The problem is, you have all the local muppets saying you can’t build high around here, so I’m going low instead, which has never been a problem for me.

The non-negotiable essentials include a bowling alley, wine cellar, cinema, ensuites, a gym, the hot tub, dining area, a wet room and a pool, obviously. I’ll need a garage for the Hummer, the Ferrari and the Porsche Cayenne. And her indoors wants an Orangery. To get all this in the lads on site are digging so deep we half expect to find a couple of Chilean miners, but needs must.

Some old geezer sniffed around, who reckoned the digging would cause the Edge to collapse. Well, if it does, then it might make a nice cave in the future, and it has a better ring to it in my opinion.

Obviously I’m up for a scrap with these local do-gooders. Their blood’s up at the moment – one of the lads is being forced to rip up his tennis court because it obscures the view from the Edge. If it was me, I’d paint a cock and balls on it just to show them.

We’re going to rent out the old gaff too, it’s part of the investment strategy. So if you know any Johnny Foreigner footballers who fancy living in style while they’re taking the piss out of Man City for a couple of years, then the going rate is £10,000 a month. You know where to find me.

Going downhill rapidly

2011-02-01T12:40:00.000-08:00

Usually the toughest decision I have to make in the new year is St Anton or Val d’Isere, but this year I’ve quite rightly been asked to join so many different parts of the government’s new push to suck up to entrepreneurs I’ve decided to say pretty much yes to everything.

I’ve copied down the list of various things I’m going to be sorting out. George Osborne, the MP for Alderley, taps me up for tips on what to do; there’s the Greater Manchester Chamber thingy, where we complain about gypsy camps and traffic; I was asked to join something called the Small Business Group, but was so offended that anyone thought I would ever even think “small” that I told them where to stick it.

But the biggie is the Entrepreneurs’ Forum with James Caan from Dragon’s Den (good lad, by the way) and that old bloke who looks like he could do with a rocket up his backside, Vinny Cable. It’s a chance for me to point out where they need to cut back the layers upon layers of red tape that the socialists tied us all up in. Health and safety? Why? Employee rights? Why? Discrimination Act – there wasn’t even a grant to put in wheelchair ramps, so where’s the incentive?

I’ve also jumped on this thing called a Fraud Forum. At first it was good way to second-guess what some of the more enterprising scammers are up to, but basically it gives you the nod on what the financial plod are chasing up, which has proved to be a good source of new business ideas.

I’ve heard there’s a VAT scheme that allows individuals to use their disability status to buy vehicles VAT free. At first I thought it looked like a bit of tawdry sticker trading – to be honest I wouldn’t have a blue badge just to park outside San Carlo, I’m not that desperate.

But once you buy the motors and then flog them to a company you set up in Belgium or Amsterdam, or somewhere, you can bring them back, claim the VAT and everyone’s a winner. No-one even needs to know they’ve been modified, you probably just put a bit of board behind the seat or something. The details can come later.

No doubt they’re going to ask my opinion on the Irish bailout. I’ll be honest, I think it’s probably not the best use of our tax, but an Irish government bond with a 9 per cent yield is a pretty good investment if you’ve got a cheeky half mill to invest. I sounded out some of the IMF boys over a round at the K Club and the time to get in is now. To be sure.

Girls girls girls

2010-12-01T11:35:00.000-08:00

I’m going to talk to you about women in business. Traditionally I’ve been against it. I know there are a few chicks around who’ve scaled the highest peaks of business, but they’re the exception not the rule. No, you’ve really got to be on top of your game to compete with the brilliant minds in the RC boardroom, where every meeting is a miniature war. And if you’re going to sod off for months on end to have babies, frankly you’re not going to cut the mustard.

There are a few top, top business birds. I met that Michelle Mone – need I say more? Great speaker and she talks about norks. Quality. Karren Brady’s also brilliant – you don’t get to work for a genius like David Sullivan without having something about you. Maggie was the best PM this country ever had, even if she had hairy legs, according to a mate who knows about these things.

These women have all made sacrifices, like me, which you have to do to reach the top. But saying that, you’ve got to offer chances to develop, because women can work wonders for you if put in the right positions (no not like that)

My old pal Dave Atherton – whatever happened to him by the way? Must look him up – once told me about two Dorises that worked for him at Dabs.com. They got right into the swing of things, if you will, and were so athletic in their endeavours they were christened “the exercise bikes”. Look it up. The politically correct brigade might not like it, but it’s just a bit of harmless banter that builds team spirit.

Another good mate, Lawrence Jones – best blogger around by the way – reckons much of his success at UKFast is down to employing large numbers of ladies. He reckons that in general they’re more practical and are better at decision-making. They also look much better in hotpants at all those techie trade shows, but that’s just a happy coincidence.

I’m coming round to this way of thinking and will be putting “girl power” at the forefront of my new venture RC Pop-ups. You know those temporary shops that pop up in shopping centres at certain times of year? Well when the world comes to realise in January that they’re all skint, my pop-up cash for gold stores will be popping up in all the pauper towns from Stoke to Carlisle.

When some loser in a shell-suit gets knocked back from a cashpoint and the brats are screaming for a Happy Meal, Roger’s Angels will be there to clean up, with a sympathetic smile. Happy days.

The tarantula eyes have it

2010-10-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

There’s a few punters getting their Fairtrade knickers in a twist over this lad AA Gill, he’s a food writer in the Times or something, but he also shot a baboon once. As you do. Not that I read it, I’m a Sunday Sport man myself – always have been, always will be. Ask ex-editor Tony “Tone” Livesey to tell you the one about Bridget the Midget, you’ll be in stitches.

Anyway, this Gill fellah did a review of Rosso. If you’ve not been, it’s at the top of King Street in Manchester and is an Italian restaurant owned by Rio “Rio” Ferdinand and my pal Mahmud Kamani. I reckon it’s brilliant, but he doesn’t.

He’s moaning about “girls strutting and pouting with tarantula eyes and Siamese breasts, showing off hooker frocks”. And? What’s the problem here? I thought this lad was supposed to be a red-blooded bloke, why else would he have a photo with a shooter and a 4x4 – maybe me and the lads should invite him up for a shooting weekend.

There’s form here as well. Him and Jeremy “Jezza” Clarkson (a good lad) did something a few years about how Alderley and Prestbury are full of clueless, snobbish nouveau riche. Utter tosh of course, black people have been allowed in both villages for years and some of the au pairs and tennis coaches come from countries even well-travelled guys like me have never heard of. It’s a cosmopolitan community. And don’t tell me we don’t do fine dining - the McDonalds in Wilmslow has been replaced by Strada.

Yes, we know what class is and we know how to enjoy ourselves. That’s handy as we’re now in the thick of the events season – barely a day goes by without some muppet law firm or gang of beancounters inviting us big hitters to a drinks reception somewhere.

What to accept and what to ignore? I go by a few golden rules – if there’s a decent VIP (Sir Alex, Michael Vaughan, Hitman Hatton etc) get along there and grab a photo for the website. Anything involving sick kids charities is always good as well, the marketing birds are usually top drawer and there’s loads of good guy points available by stumping up a couple of ton for a footy shirt. You’ll make the cash back on eBay, no sweat.

Here’s a tip – avoid the ones that say you’ll be treated to music from a string quartet. All it means is that it’ll be quiet, a cunning plan so that the partners can pick your brains on where the smart money’s going, before boring you rigid about the “multi-disciplinary services” they offer. Taxi, the Fantasy Bar and don’t spare the horses!

Going for a double dip

2010-10-10T01:17:00.000-07:00

We have no choice but to call it a day with our so-called turnaround fund, Uranus Capital.

Long story short, we haven’t been able to give the money away. Yet I’m still convinced the recession and the coming “double dip” will be the biggest opportunity in my adult lifetime to make money.

My reckoning when I started Uranus was that we were going to clean up. Credit crunch, banks being tough, recession. I mean how hard could it be? We’d find a few of the lads who’d had a tough time off the banks, stick a few dodgy parts of the business into admin – pay off the debt, or convert it into our debt, take a fee and a slice of the action, sit back and wait for things to get back to normal. Happy days.

In 2009 everyone was piling in. You couldn’t finish a round of golf at Mere without lads coming up and saying they were good for a cheeky half mill. First problem was the banks haven’t been as bad as we hoped. In the normal course of events they’d pile in with axes and chainsaws and get Begbies Traynor to mop up as best they could. This time they’ve got all these pointy heads from London doing Special Situations and all that nonsense. If you ask me, it’s just putting off the inevitable.

To be fair, we did get a couple of deals away, and a 2 per cent annual management fee still keeps the wolf from the door. We helped one of the lads we go shooting with, so he can still come shooting, but the poor lad's down to his last Range Rover. And we’ve got a stake in a coffee plantation in Costa Rica, which looks like a winner.

But the point of these funds is that we make the decisions, the investors sit back and thank us for the effort when the cheques roll in. Try telling that to this mob from Jersey who jumped in at the last minute. Maybe there’s something they put in the milk over there, but I’ve never come across mitherers like it. The annual report came back with red pen all over it, especially on the bit about our “management fee”. I mean, it’s not a charity you know, we don’t come cheap. They even called an EGM. The cheek of it.

In the end we decided to sack it off. It’s called “returning cash to shareholders”. I just don’t need grief like that – I get enough of it at home. So, while Uranus is now going to look at “opportunities on a deal-by-deal basis,” I’m thinking of a new fund to take advantage of the investments arising from the “double dip” around the corner. DD Assets – fancy some? Offshore tax dodgers need not apply.

Four Floors of Whores

2010-09-09T15:16:00.000-07:00

My invite must have got lost in the post, but I spotted that the FIFA delegation were in Manchester and Liverpool measuring up our great cities for England’s World Cup bid.

It sounds like they played it safe with tours of Old Trafford, a few hotels, the safe tour of the airport (avoiding the Chav Airways departures), Man City’s council house, and some kiddies kicking balls about in Albert Square.

To be honest they all missed the point. I would have nudged the blazer brigade in the direction of good time central for when the circus is in town – the knocking shops, the lappy bars, the places to have a good session and a hotel with a discreet doorman that doesn’t tip off the paparazzi.

And to be fair, Liverpool always does alright on that score – it’s an exhausting night, but a tour of the top half dozen lap dancing bars – Six in the City, we call it – is always a winner. A proper class night out.

Manchester is sadly lacking in that particular part of the leisure sector and is in dire danger of missing out. It probably explains why it doesn’t rate in all these surveys of places people want to do business.

Luckily, me and a few of the lads have come up with a plan that might just rescue Manchester city centre from imminent decline.

For starters, the council needs to mark off a part of the city centre as a “party zone,” – they’ve done it with the Gay Village, why not a Straight Village as well? You’d start with Lloyd Street where Boutique and Silks have made a good start. A few shop windows, a few specialist shops, and on it goes.

It works for every other major European city – so why not here?

But every zone needs a hub, and where better than the old Ithaca site. No-one was more gutted than me when Tony “Fordy” Ford and Arnie Hira had to close the door. It was a venue ahead of its time. The décor was the very best, even though the food was a bit poncey for my palette. I said all along that it is the perfect venue for a lap dancing bar. Lots of nooks and crannies, plenty of private areas, and it’s a multi-level leisure destination that in time could be a magnet for loaded lads the world over.

I’ve even thought of a name: Four Floors of Whores.

And that, dear reader, is why I am so good at what I do.

Halliwell Landau RIP

2010-07-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

I was as shocked as anyone by what’s gone on at Halliwells, but there’s been a lot of rot talked.

I’m going to stick my neck out and speak up for the lads over there. First, so they did this hooky property deal where the partners all creamed a few mill each. SO WHAT? That’s capitalism kids. Get real. As I was saying to one of the ex-partners on his yacht in Puerto Banus the other week – who wouldn’t honestly have done the same thing given the choice? I know I have and if it wasn’t for the cowardice of the banks, then I would again.

Second, this lad Ian Austin was meant to have made a speech in Prague – great city for a lads trip by the way - saying the firm was going places. Jeez, if every bit of tub thumping rhetoric I’ve spewed out over the years was quoted back at me there’d me more rubbish talked about me on the internet than Steven Gerrard.

I don’t know this Austin myself – Halliwells will always be Clive Garston and Alec “Craigy” Craig to me – and the Earl of Lancashire Chris Eddlestone. This was a firm with a bit of breeding. And surely it’s no coincidence that the less you’ve seen of these lads in the office in Manchester, the more you hear of the problems piling up.

And they’ll always be Halliwell Landau as well – a much more sinister name that struck fear into the hearts of some loser you were suing. I’ll never forget the look on the face of some high street brief from Bramhall when the Halliwell Landau mob slammed their briefcases on the table and screamed – and screamed “we’re the Sweeney and we ain’t had our dinner.”

Next, the offices. Fair enough, they were a bit over the top and I’d have turned that ground floor reception into a branch of Subway, or Branagans, or Panacea, or something. And I’d have put them foxy receptionists on show at the front, not hidden upstairs. It’s the little touches, see.

The thing is, I know I speak for a lot of other successful stand-up lads who’ve done well out of the firm when I mention all of this. There are quality operators out there who have been served well over the years. Good lads like Mark Guterman, Mike Connett, Mike Ashley and last, but by no means least, Chris Ronnie.

This sporting life

2010-07-24T10:25:00.000-07:00

I’m a competitive guy and I hate to lose. That much is obvious, right? And I reckon I’m onto a sure-fire winner with my latest import, the vuvuzela. You’ll have heard them if you were watching any of the World Cup, some people find them annoying but to me they sound just like my accountant droning “We can’t do this Roger, we can’t do that Roger”.

I think they stole my heart when I was wandering through town and some Doris in a football shirt whispered sweetly to me: “Would you like to blow on my vuvuzela?”. That touched me in a very special place, I have to say. They’re going to be all over the Premier League like Dani Behr next season and I’ve got the exclusive UK licence.

Me and a few of the boys piled over to SA for a few days to soak up the atmosphere and seal the deal, as it were. The football was rubbish. Saw some dross between Bongo Bongo Land and the former Soviet Republic of Bulimia, forget the details. England were shite as well.

I just wish someone had said it was winter, it was bloody freezing. Although my beige Hugo Boss looked the bollocks when we were on safari.

It’s been a busy month on the sports front. Pal of mine whistled up a few Centre Court tickets for Wimbledon (last time I went they lost 2-1 to Coventry, ha ha) which was a belting day. Belting if you like old biddies reading the Daily Mail and eating strawberries, anyway. There were a few young Dorises knocking about, although with these tennis sorts you’re never sure if a) they’re legal or b) they’ve got a mental dad from some East European war-zone. Best to steer clear.

I’ve also been up to the cricket at Old Trafford. I quite like that big red box they’ve got over the little changing rooms building, but we could have done a better job with it, or at least got them a sponsorship deal with China Shippping. I was hoping to have a catch-up with Beefy Botham but the mobile signal must be blocked out by the new box – and Freddie Flintoff was out of bounds too, think he was busy on a bash with his best pal Paul “Becky” Beck.

That’s not all. I’ve offered my services to the lads who’ve taken over Chester City. I’m a “football man” who thinks he’s got a lot to offer in the boardroom and beyond – there’s no point being modest about the fact I can play a bit. Basically, I just want to be brilliant around people.

For some reason, when I told them I was good pals with Mark Guterman and Alex Hamilton, lads who’ve been there and done that when it comes to footy clubs, they went all cold on me. I’ve never understood the Welsh.

For the sake of the sick kids

2010-05-31T06:17:00.000-07:00

I don’t like losing. I was in the running to be the face of Finn Air, but lost out to that Imran Hakim. You know, the lad with the teddy bears and the scruffy shoes. I was told he has a softer and more positive image – which is why he now flies first class to Shanghai for nothing and has his face on all the billboards and I don’t.

After a bit of research into my brand equity; which roughly translates as taking Lisa Morton to lunch, and asking her what everyone says about me, she bluntly told me I come across as sexist, arrogant and, frankly, “a selfish oaf”. It cut me to the quick did that, and if she wasn’t such a looker I’d have slapped her: just ask Andy Spinoza what happened when he told me what I didn’t want to hear. Alright, I take the sexist and arrogant on the chin, but I’m not selfish. I pay my tax. I cooperate with the investigators and do my bit for charity. Trouble is, I just don’t talk about it enough.

That’s why I decided to devote the last month to good causes.

I put a team in the Premiership Cook Off for the Five Stars Appeal – something to do with sick kids, always a winner with me. It was also at my local, Panacea in Alderley Edge. What a great night.

All the footy boys were there: Wayne Bridge, Shaun Wright-Philips, Robbie “Sav” Savage, some Africans from Stoke and a load of foreign lads from City who’ve been practising like mad as they don’t get to play much since the Ab Dabs started buying players like kids buy Panini stickers.

The only problem with having footballers at events is the auction. Usually the winner is me, winding up the lawyers and bankers by upping the bidding on all these prizes that “money can’t buy”. Not this time, the football lads are rabidly competitive, and they can afford it. Ickle Shaun coughed up £4K to be bullied by Ricky Hatton for the day.

Speaking of competition, once I heard that Rob “John Terry” Cotton was doing his 10k runs in ten countries I had to have a piece of that action. I’m not going to pretend it wasn’t hard work, but I did my bit. And just to show I wasn’t going to be outdone by Imran Hakim, Tony “Mach” Machin, Mike Perls or any of the rest of them I knocked off an extra one in Abersoch when we got back. All the way round, as my joints ached and my heart pounded, I was told to focus on the kids and what it means to them. I couldn’t bring myself to do that, but when I’m the poster boy for a major European airline, then all the pain will have been worth it.

You can still donate here.

Fly away

2010-05-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

Well, who saw that coming? As Tony Tighe (he’s grrrrrrreat, geddit?) or maybe it was Mark “Fast” Boler said in the bar at Mere, you can’t go implementing anti-terrorist measures against the Icelandic government without them exacting some sort of revenge, and it’s not like the Cod Wars this time, or like when they went bust and Chris “Purple” Ronnie had to give up his sports shops. They only went and blew up a volcano.

I reckon it all looks like an insurance job. I mean, Iceland goes bust and the island catches fire. Yeah, right. We've all been there before haven't we?

Actually, one of the lads had a bet running that the whole explosion thing was something to do with Russian mobsters getting their own back after their dodgy dosh had been frozen, but I for one am not going public with that sort of slur on the Ivans, I don’t really fancy keeling over in Yo! Sushi! after a tuna and polonium II wrap.

Timing is everything and as luck would have it, the RC Solutions mob had just got back from a team-building session in Banus when the skies got closed down – I wanted to be back over for the Beefy Botham walk in Manchester - so we all had a good laugh at the muppets kipping down in airports and moaning about their “holiday of a lifetime” being ruined. Pass the tissues.

That Mick with the cheap planes where you have to pay to use the bog was funny, refusing to stump up for hotel stays and he had a point to be fair – if you book on Tightarse Tours why should you get the Presidential Suite just because there’s a bit of a delay? The week was a breeze for us, frankly. Took the chopper down to Abersoch for the weekend, job’s a good un.

It’s at times of crisis that the best of breed set themselves apart and my good mate Lawrence “Jonesy” Jones of UKFast took the man of the match prize home. Jonesy and his lads were due over at some “hosting conference” in Verbier – it’s in the Swiss Alps, for the benefit of poor people – but he got told his private jet couldn’t make the trip.

Jonesy’s made of stern stuff though, and commandeered a couple of Porsche Cayennes to do it by road. James “Kighty” Kight from Printerland bet him a quid he wouldn’t make it, which is all the encouragement anyone needs. At one point he had to throw a few quid to the French plod after misunderstanding the speed limit, but they made it to Dickie Branson’s gaff in time. Which when you see the pictures of his marketing girls in the hot tub you'll understand why.

Fair play to Jonesy, I’ll buy him a beer next time I’m at Sale Sharks, as they didn’t get relegated. And the planes are back flying so no harm done. Anyone know when Tony “Fordy” Ford’s next golf trip is?

Seasons in the sun

2010-03-25T04:54:00.000-07:00

I only got into property because it’s the last bastion of fun. Golf days, trips to the races, Friday afternoons in Sam’s Chop House and loads of awards dinners. And then there’s MIPIM. While our solutions lot have an annual trade show in Hanover, the property boys go to Cannes for a week of proper debauchery and serious drinking.

Believe you me, it is mental and this year’s bash didn’t disappoint. All the public sector bods have been spinning out the party line that its nowadays all about hard work, that they’re only there because it’s the only way of getting in front of all the big hitters from the sensible banks (ie not the Jocko or Paddy ones) and the “inward investors” - frankly, registering as an end user for MIPIM is like being the fit girl in one of those American high school films, you’re beating blokes off with a shitty stick.

Hard work? This lot want to try working for RC Diamond Geezers in Angola if they want to know what hard work is. MIPIM may be a bit quieter, but there’s still a hell of a lot of boozing to be done, and if you’re pretty well connected – as I happen to be – there’s usually a boat to head to for some entertainment. Last year I ended up at a Bananarama gig on some yacht, apparently some damage was done to the mahogany fittings and whatnot, but we were long gone, tucked up in Barracuda bar, before the captain got wind of it.

You’ve got to get in the spirit of it and dress the part as well, though most lads don’t bother, just grabbing a pair of Oakley sunglasses at the airport so they’re not squinting over their lagers at the Russian “marketing girls” outside Café Roma. This year, Lord Tom Bloxham had a checked suit just like this table cloth we have at the gaff in Abersoch, while a few of the chaps see themselves as the Man from Del Monte and don some light-coloured linen numbers – if they were as “ripped” as me, they’d look like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, but after a few beach lunches it’s not such a good idea.

To be fair, I got a few deals done this year. Rostov, which I think is in Russia, put on a belting stand which managed to hold my attention a bit longer than the Peel boys’ banging on about the Ocean of Opportunity or whatever. Olga, as I think she was called, gave me all sorts of stats on the labour availability, international connectivity and all that tackle, which was fantastic. The upshot is I’ve put together a mixed-use resi, golf course and marina scheme which I reckon is going to blow their bloody socks off. They respect an entrepreneur, the Russkis.

Yes, MIPIM’s great. The only downside is the clash with Cheltenham, but when you’ve got a few credits on a private jet you can nip between the two. This must be what they mean by the “Global Village”. Frankly, I’m all for it.

Hammer Time, Truth Time

2010-03-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

I thought it was only fair of me to explain why I’ve taken RC Spam Solutions off the market. I know it was keeping every adviser in town busy, but trust me, it’s for the best. For the past six months all the corporate finance muppets have been on at me to sell assets – they reckon the last desperate, spiteful act of the outgoing socialist regime will be to whack capital gains tax up to, I don’t know, pick a figure; the more desperate they are, the closer to 50 per cent it creeps.
Selling a good business goes against every entrepreneurial bone in my body. It’s the crap ones I try and get rid of, flogging them for the highest possible price before someone works out what’s really going on, or just doing a phoenix to wash out the bad debt.
So we “ran a process” as they say – that basically means playing off one bunch of idiots against the others. We had four of them running around so confused they didn’t know what time it was. And what a motley lot they were. Muppets.

On one side we had the kids who’d been bullied at school, who now try and cut up rough – private equity to me and you.
Two, the teenage scribblers who’ve barely started shaving from the City fund managers; they were looking to back our float on AIM.
Three, we also got on to these religious weirdos from America who do the same thing as us (in fact, we stole the idea). Stick a mysterious US trade buyer into an auction and it can go either way – it can frighten the home team off, or spring them into action.
Last and by all means least, we also told management to put a bid together, but frankly they proved something I always suspected, they’re about as much use as Stephen Hawking’s skis. So, the official line is, I’m unconvinced the new ownership opportunities represented the best strategic options available. I could leave it at that.

But the process has also flushed out a few home truths that have proved useful. The management we’d been thinking of getting rid are so frustrated they want to get out and it won’t cost us a penny. The American rivals are in more trouble than we realised, borrowed too much in the good times – tut tut. The City boys fully understand our sentiment and we’re going to be
welcome back anytime. As for the private equity lads? They still run the best ski trips. And the whole auction was run on contingent fee structure. Happy days!

Justice for Vance Miller

2010-02-07T04:09:00.000-08:00

My trust in good old British justice has been restored. Just when I thought that the socialists were running rampant and squeezing the last drop of entrepreneurial spirit out of this once proud nation, good sense has prevailed.

I refer of course to the plight of Vance Miller – the King of Kitchens, and a top bloke. The Trading Standards mob have hounded the poor lad. Now, he’s free to pursue his business after the Judge threw the case out. Sounds like one of the Trading Standards blokes got a bit obsessed. They do, you know. I had this VAT investigator after me once who even started dressing like me and eating in San Carlo every Friday. I knew he’d lost the plot when I spotted him in Long Legs under assault from some scrubber from Oldham with, to be fair, magnificent charlies.

But enough of that. The New Year has brought its usual bag of surprises. Our finance director resigned, thinking he can go on to bigger and better things. Now, you know these Coronation Street so-called “stars” who do two years at it, get in the papers, get a new agent, go on Big Brother, or the Jungle, or something and think they can take Hollywood by storm? Well, that’s what this bloke is like. He’d be better off reflecting that the smartest one on Corrie Street is Ken Barlow – been at it 50 years, lives in a big house in Wilmslow. The turncoat will be back when he realises he’s only got where he is because I let him.

Once they come back after Christmas all these muppets here need reminding of what they’re here to do. So I get them in a room and give them a proper facts of life lecture. I’ve had these big posters done up for the sales floor – big pictures of me bearing down on them – “Bring me solutions, not problems!”, “Just Sort It!”, “You’re the cream? Well I’d hate to taste the milk!”.

I give them the usual hairdryer treatment; you know how that works; knock ‘em down to pick them up.

Some of the lads from Alderley went to some business do last month called RAW. I was asked to get involved, but it didn’t look like my cup of tea. For a start, they should have called it WAR – because that’s what REAL business is like.

All my worst suspicions were confirmed when I heard the car park was full of Porsche Boxsters and Audis R8s. Hardly my class of motor, are they? And who in Salford Quays could you trust to valet park a Hummer?

An open goal for entrepreneurs

2010-02-07T04:05:00.000-08:00

Am I the only person left who still thinks Dubai is ace? Me and Mrs C had a pre-Christmas break - she likes the shopping and the skiing and I’d heard a whisper the Stevie Gerrard Tower might be available for a song now everything’s going tits up. They keep going on about unsustainable debt levels, but there’s still plenty of Russkis and Afghans about, but the good thing is all the scrotes have bailed out, that night flight from Ringway was starting to look like the Agadoo express. No class.

Out of despair comes happiness, for some. When your mind moves as fast as mine, it’s easy to forget that not everyone’s blessed with the natural ability to be a winner. One man’s hapless idiot is another man opportunity.

Take debt, which I’ve never been shy of doing. We’ve set up RC Money Saving Expert Solutions - a loans business. We run cheap ads on daytime telly and then just waited for the calls to flood in. Your sales jockeys take the calls, act sympathetic and “refer” the request to a “boss” who obviously refuses it – you don’t want to end up actually giving out cash after all.

But you follow this kick in the goolies up with an arm round the shoulder, by referring the punter to a sister company in debt management – the lad at the next desk, or even the same one if he’s good at accents.

We then sign the punter up to one affordable monthly payment at whatever per cent he thinks he can get away with, all in exchange for offering advice they could get for free if they had the wit to look up some cuddly public sector cardigan-wearing types on the internet. It’s flawless, and best of all unstifled by the type of regulation that’s holding British business back.

The only problem is we had that Donal MacIntyre sniffing around – the one who made a berk of himself going undercover with the Chelsea lads a few years back. He was on the radio - kicking up a fuss about it, but why should entrepreneurs miss an open goal in the meantime? As someone once told me, “When we’re good they never remember, when we’re bad they never forget.”

Twitter tales

2009-11-29T07:09:00.000-08:00

I’m an early adopter. Gadgets, technology, new enterprise markets. You got ‘em, I’m in ‘em. I had a car fax in 1988, back when my first mobile phone was bigger than a housebrick and premium rate phone numbers were a licence to steal money. Oh happy days. We used to send out these black faxes to anyone we could find. To cancel them they had to phone or fax our premium rate number. We were raking it in. This was before all this red tape that stopped entrepreneurs like me from raising money from the pathologically stupid.

I’m now on Twitter (@rogercashman). It took me a while to work out the point of it, but it has huge spamming potential. Everyone who follows you can see everyone else who follows you. And you can send people messages letting them know what you think.

I told Stephen Fry he was boring – which he is – that got me a load more followers, but it nearly sent him back to the nuthouse.

Its use was rammed home at this techie conference in Manchester. Basically you can sit there and text in your opinion. Some guy called Alain de Bottom was beamed in by video link (memo to self, must get one for the games room at Cashman Towers). He prattled on about the future of work – sorry pal, writingbooks and talking is not work, so I told him: jog on, baldy. He then sends me a message asking what I’d done to offend him.

Now, at this point I’d already bailed out and taken a little posse up to Panacea for a Friday livener. Lord Tom Bloxham, who I used to think of as a friend, tells de Bottom he shouldn’t take any notice of me, because I’m a “made up character”. Outrageous. At least I don’t wear a hat.

Mrs C, a follower, not a leader, then gets on the Twitter bandwagon and notices that most of the people I follow are beautiful women – can’t win can I? I get called a “lecherous sexist pig” for taking an interest in professional women, and all this in the week when I’m up before an industrial tribunal for running a “macho culture” on the sales floor at RC Faxback Solutions. She then clocked that I was following someone by the name of Cheshire Escorts (whatever that is).

I swear I thought it was a Ford Dealer in Nantwich. Now she thinks I’ve been “at it” again and it’s going to cost me a fortune. Being accused of using high-class brass, I can deal with. But you know what they say, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. Think about it.

Blood brothers

2009-11-13T08:03:00.000-08:00

My business partner Rick Chalmers is the opposite of me. He’s so shy and retiring I bet you didn’t even know he exists. He says he likes to keep a lower profile than me. Think of us as the Morecambe and Wise of business. Or the George Michael and Andrew Ridgely, not that I’m “good with colours”, but then neither is he. Rick lets me do all the deals, all the work and I let him take his salary and dividends and he kind of chairs the odd meeting and deals with the back office day to day detail. My job is to look after the blue sky vision and business development. Don’t get me wrong, he’s had a part to play over the years, and he sort of started RC Solutions while I was on gardening leave from The Accident Group.

Sometimes you’ve got to act quick in business. Over the summer, there I was holding the whole thing together, opening his mail for him and he’s had this Internet junk mail outfit in Oldham asking for help after they’ve been shut down by trading standards again. They were about to go into administration so I picked it up, polished it off and parked it in this unit in one of Bashar Issa’s buildings near Piccadilly – not the one that had the fire, I’m not that squeaky. I’d bought it for cash, signed a PG on the debt and assigned it to Cashman Solutions (IOM) 2009, which is actually in the wife’s name.

Rick was off at his place in Tuscany – can’t see the point myself – no beach, no clubs, no golf, he just says he goes to read books and stuff. Some of them are even in Italian, which is frankly just borderline odd. You can understand that when he’s off with the fairies on crap like that I’ve got to grab deals when I can.

So there I was at Chester Races for the Summer do and he’s going right off on one, put me right off my punting. He’s even talking divorce, but we sat down, worked out how things were going to work in the future and it looks like we’re going to have to stick it out.

Just to show him I’m reasonable I’ve given him 2 per cent share and an option to buy the rest off me if we float it. Can’t say fairer than that can you?

I am a man of honour, despite what you may have heard to the contrary. What would it say about me and my reputation if I fell out with my best mate over something as trivial as taking a stealing a deal from under his nose?

Fordy and the Bongo man

2009-10-02T03:33:00.000-07:00

I love Tony "Fordy" Ford. What a guy. He's now brought over masseuse to the stars, Bongo Man, who's left the beaches of Barbados behind and arrived in the North West to bring a little Barbados sunshine into the lives of those with life-threatening illness.

Bongo Man, who has worked on the beach at the Caribbean island’s most exclusive resort – Sandy Lane – for 17 years, is a guest of Fordy - entrepreneur and a top man who does loads for charity.

During his stay, Bongo Man will visit local hospices including St Ann’s Hospice where he will meet with staff and day-care patients and learn more about the specialist massage the hospice provides.

He will also be putting his services up for auction at a number of events to help raise money for charity, including the annual St Ann’s Hospice Ladies Fashion Lunch on October 2, and the EN Magazine Entrepreneur of the Year Awards (my kind of dinner).

Pre-pack to Jet Pack - hear my story

2009-09-29T06:10:00.000-07:00

Me and my new best mate Imran Hakim got invited to see some Americans talking the other day. Seriously, people pay money for this. We didn’t pay, obviously, but the taxpayer did. I do like the NWDA, even though sound like they should be a rap band. Maybe they are?

Anyway, back to these speakers. One was old, had a beard and talked about emotions, or something like that (we’ll call him Beardie). But he talked ALL MORNING.

The other had mad hair (I’m going to call him Mad Hair from now on), has written a few books that everyone was raving about and he talked ALL AFTERNOON. I had a peek at one of his books in the lunch break – he’s no Andy McNab, but there’s clearly a big market in sweaty middle managers on the verge of a major nervous breakdown, looking for someone to tell them how to get on in life.

Mad Hair was good. He talked about Fleetwood Mac, always liked that Stevie Nicks. So, Mad Hair reckons he told a few New York hedge fund boys (probably know them) about the optimum wealth levels for being a good parent. I have this row with Mrs C all the time. Obviously raising your brats in the slums of Calcutta (or Stockport, or somewhere) is just lining them up for a life sentence of misery. Spoiling them rotten means they don’t work hard enough. He had my full attention for that until he said the perfect level was a measly £75K a year. How can we pay for school fees, pony club, the house in Abersoch and a driver on standby on that? He meant £75K in income per family. Fantastic. What a wind up. He had me going for a minute, but as the Yanks don’t get irony I’m not so sure. The hedge fund lads certainly won’t like some punk rocker taking the piss out of them.

He then told a few stories about history and success and war and how overconfidence was what did it for Lehman Brothers. He lost me half way through, but everyone else seemed to like it. Now either this is the worst case of the “Emporer’s New Clothes”, or it’s just money for old rope. You had 500 punters coughing a grand apiece to listen to this, or at least the NWA paying for them. Take out marketing costs, room hire and printing and I reckon Beardie and Mad Hair must have cleared £100K each. I’m having some of this.

Next year I reckon me and Imran could do even better. He can talk about Dragon’s Den and toys and stuff. I’ll copy a few chunks out of Art of War, use a few of Chubby Brown’s best gags, then tell everyone how I bounced back from the worst recession since the market correction of 2002. The science of my success was that toxic alchemy of cunning, intelligence and my ten point guide to loopholes in the Enterprise Act. I’ll call it From Pre-Pack to Jet Pack. You’d come wouldn’t you?

Bloody students

2009-09-08T00:25:00.000-07:00

I’m an educated man. I graduated with honours from the University of Life. The sponging student life was not for me, but now I’ve had my eyes opened to the land of opportunity that awaits in student land. And I’m not just talking about the number of times I mutter “would” when you wander about.

I’ve been putting in some time at the seats of learning, ready to check out what’s going on with start-ups with innovative “solutions” and stuff.

Since I went on Dragons’ Den (well, the screen test), I've been asked back to sit and judge these professor types with the "next best thing". I got collared to go on one with Scott “Fletch” Fletcher and Imran “Imran” Hakim, which frankly makes the whole thing feel like taking candy from a baby.

Most of these techie kids have no idea how to present the idea; there’s just no commercial nous whatsoever. You try going into some of the City boardrooms where I’ve walked the walk; start stuttering and muttering and your arse is history. That’s why they need someone who can talk the talk and command a room to be by their side. Do you see where I’m going with this?

On the face of it, it might seem a bit boring to be hanging around incubator buildings at universities, but I’ve always said, you reap what you sow, unless you’re talking about farming grants. And let’s face it, just how much of my and your hard-earned tax is going to
“knowledge economy” guff that no one understands? You may as well fill your boots and take what’s rightfully yours.

I’ve got to say I’ve forged a real bond with some of my students, or if it doesn’t sound too arrogant, followers. Their attention is grabbed from the moment they hear the Hummer crunching over the gravel.

The students are fine, especially the ones with big debts, they’ll do anything to get on my good side. And I mean anything.

No, it’s these boffins I worry about. They have half an idea and think some “product development” and “marketing channel research” will make them rich. No it won’t. What they need is a 50-seater sales floor with coke-crazed sales boys on commission-only trying to flog the thing as if their lives depended on it. It’s always worked for me.

WHY I’M STANDING AGAINST HAZEL BLEARS

2009-07-03T05:55:00.000-07:00

There’s been a lot of tosh talked about MPs filling their boots on expenses and frankly it’s gone too far. Joe Public’s had enough of public servants sticking their snouts in the trough and filling their flats with John Lewis sofas paid for by you and me – the humble taxpayer.

But as my old man Don “the Don” Cashman always told me, somebody ballsing up means there’s an opportunity for somebody else. In short – it’s time for guys like yours truly to get involved. Integrity, charisma and the ability to get things done – I don’t think I’m overstating my credentials here. And with Alan Sugar (unlike his muppet contestants and that Doris from Birmingham City I’m an old pal and don’t have to call him Sir) now installed as the business tsar the wealth creators of this country might finally start getting the recognition we deserve – and about time.

But you only get one shot at this sort of thing so it’s crucial you get it right. The first question is, where do you stand? Obviously Tatton would be handy, but although I could count on the votes of the boys at Mere Golf Club and all the Alderley lot, but they've actually taken to George Osborne to be fair. People like the toffs when they're a bit thick, it's the funny ones that rub you up the wrong way.

I did quite fancy having a tilt at that Ruth Kelly bird, the religious one who whips herself, she knocked back Steve “Stevo” Parry’s plans to flatten New Brighton and replace it with something decent, whcih was bang out of order. But she’s standing down now anyway and I don’t fancy going up against Susan Williams, a woman who has something of the mighty Maggie about her (get well soon by the way Mrs T). Plus, Bolton? Come on!

You’ve got to target the ones that have really pissed the voters off. I can exclusively reveal here that I’ll be mounting a challenge against Hazel Blears, that little one who looks a bit like Gordon Strachan. I will crush her like a bug. She is toast. Cashman is coming. I have my own place in Salford - the top floor suite at the Lowry is virtually a main residence - but I won't be claiming for it - and we will run the whole thing from the corner booth at San Carlo should I ever need to actually stay there during the day. Frankly, I can only see one winner, but as this is a democracy, here’s what can I promise the people of Salford.

Compassion – I’ve raised literally hundreds of pounds for sick kids down the years, I almost had my own parking spot at Francis House at one point. It’s not something I play on though.

Vision – Under my leadership, Salford would win unprecedented global exposure through twinning arrangements. I’ve already made headway with partners in Douglas, Lagos and one of the Chinese places the Scousers haven’t worked out how to get to.

Integrity – they can try as much as they want to dig dirt, but I’ve never yet had a complaint upheld against me by the Insolvency Service, HM Revenue & Customs, the Race Relations Board or even the European Court of Human Rights. How many people can say that?

I will win here. Like I did when I beat all these lot. I'm a fighter, not a quitter.

This Sporting Life - me and the lads on the moors

2009-06-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

My friend Ian Griffin - the truth

2009-06-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

This blog entry has been removed for legal reasons.

God Save The Queen

2009-05-28T14:54:00.000-07:00

Mrs C has been getting twitchy again. She’s seen some of her mates hit rock bottom and needs to keep me on my toes. One of them is even driving an Audi estate, which is a big comedown from a Range Rover and an Aston Martin DB9, but that’s property for you.

Her botox and plastic norks clinic will scrape by, but the resi property stuff is rubbish. It’s probably going to lose us £50K this year. But I reckon if she didn’t have so much to do she’d only end up spending double that much at Hoopers.

Now she says she needs some more “substance” in her life – and she doesn’t mean the kind she used to shovel up her nose when I first met her and she was shaking her bits at the Purple Door in Yesterdays in Alderley.

She set me a target – and I love targets, I’m a winner – to meet royalty. She wasn’t impressed with getting an invite to the new shopping centre in Liverpool, even though “His dis-Grace” the Duke of Westminster was going to be cutting the ribbon on the Capital of Culture’s new “Peasant Crescent”.

My next route was to join this mob called Business in the Community - basically, it's the icing on the shit. Pay up and everyone says what a great guy you are. I went to an unbelievably boring day of speeches last year and signed a few forms pledging to cut our carbon footprint – it’s alright, no-one checks – and then we got invited to go to old Charlie Big Ears gaff down south.

You’ve never seen sharp elbows like it. All these mad witches falling over themselves in an orgy of brown nosing and I’ve never seen anyone look so bored in his life. She was trying to tell him he had an “exquisite garden” – like he doesn’t know that already and all he wanted to do was go on about the polar bears.

She was well happy for a bit and all was good, but rather than thanking me, she wanted more. That’s why I got a ticket for Queen’s last trip to these parts. We got offered slots in the welcome committee for her trip to Warburtons off Jonathan “Warbie” Warburton, but I thought we’d get more “quality time” at her visit to Leigh Sports Village. To cut a long story short, I don’t know if it was something I said, or Mrs C said, or maybe Lord Peter Smith went on a bit about Wigan, or congestion charging or whatever, but the poor old dear nodded off. I didn’t know where to look. Even Mrs C was lost for words and she realises she’s probably been too pushy on the social climbing scales even by her standards.

No good deed goes unpunished

2009-05-12T14:40:00.000-07:00

I will never, ever, ever agree to going on television again. And I will never, ever, ever agree to helping people who are poor and “deserving of a chance”. Frankly they’re in the cesspool of their own misery for a reason and there’s nothing that can be done.

You will see me on the Channel 4 programme Secret Millionaire in a few weeks and be able to draw your own conclusions, but before you do I just want to set the record straight. I was asked to go to the Stoops estate in Burnley. On my first day I saw a banner on the railings by the bridge – “Happy 30th birthday – Nana”. I promised to put some money on the table and encourage local enterprise. They asked me to pretend to be a social worker, which is harder than you’d think. Tactfully, I left the Ferrari at home – and what a good job. The Hummer got keyed and one of the locals tried to crowbar the family crest off one of the wheels.

Everyone complained about debt problems, so I decided to do a bit of undercover work of my own. The problem was there was no money since Cattles had been run out of town and the IVA boys had got their wings clipped. So I set up two local lads in a business providing “flexible finance solutions”. I didn’t think it was fair to mention this to the producers because it was a sideline.

At the community centre everyone was saying they were bored with no money, especially the single mums. Lightbulb time. With some lighting and plenty of make up, some scrubbed up alright. I offered to make Thursday nights at the centre into Peppermint Hippos, local talent night, if you like.

That’s when it kicked off. I was accused of being a pimp, drug dealer and a loan shark. All true, except for the drug thing – that was just the car. Thing is, I never agreed to that being on the programme. I’ve never seen a mob like it; they obviously don’t have pitchforks and torches in Burnley, just petrol bombs and hammers. One of the lads had to get me out with his helicopter landing on the roof.

So I’m done. I have one final brush with TV people up my sleeve – a “drink off” between Ricky Hatton and Freddie Flintoff. It starts in Players Bar at the Four Seasons at the end of September. Freddie has to pocket his dough from the Indians and duff up the Windies. Ricky needs a lift after he got battered in Vegas. Frankly, the last time someone got that badly beaten around the ring they ended up face down in Michael Barrymore's pool.

What sport tells us about life

2009-04-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I despair at the lack of ambition of the so-called entrepreneurial classes of the golden triangle – Alderley, Knutsford and Wythenshawe. Once you could breeze into the Alderley Bar and Grill on a Friday night and have a deal done by closing time. Now everyone is claiming to be skint – the only people ready to have a punt are the gangsters and footballers.
Gangsters are alright as long as you keep the bubbly flowing, but even I get a bit uneasy about their “bad debt provisions”.
My old man Don “The Don” Cashman was in the QSG and taught me everything I needed to know about credit control when he bundled Jonny Fingers into the boot of his Roller in 1977.
Footballers on the other hand are very open to new ideas and “alternative investment classes”. Some of them stumped up for a salvage ship I hired to get hold of this sunken treasure in the North Sea. It wasn’t the best deal we’ve ever done, but you get Frank McAvennie (Celtic, West Ham and Scotland) on the subject in San Carlo and everyone’s in stitches.
You’ve got to be careful, though; they do take things literally. I was telling Rio Ferdinand (West Ham, Man U and England) how me and (the third) Mrs Cashman got hitched and had these two elephants deliver the rings. He then only goes and gets some owls for his do. Why?
I’m about to slot myself into this deal with David “Tommo” Thompson (England u21, Liverpool, Blackburn, Wigan, etc etc) on a very sweet little deal. He’s the shop steward for the
football lads and they’re all piling into this little fund to buy successful growth businesses. Obviously they need a bit of technical knowledge, and I reckon a two per cent finders fee, some rollover equity and a management contract for RC (Footballer Investment) Trust (IOM 2008) LLP is a very useful contribution of my time and effort.
We’ve got this investment opportunity for a coffee plantation in Costa Rica, an IT company in Manchester (guess who?) and a new private security firm to keep an eye on the footballers’ houses (and the WAGs) when they’re away on European duty. I think we’re on to a winner there. And we’ve all been promised tickets for Wembley.
I feel very proud of my contribution to the financial success of these sporting heroes. Indeed, I regard it as a public service to protect them from the army of hangers-on offering self-serving, badly timed advice.

With friends like these

2009-02-19T14:00:00.000-08:00

I get all sorts ringing me and getting on my case when they’ve seen me here. But when you are featured in the biggest selling newspaper in Britain, two weeks out of three, the phone goes mental and I get stopped in the street even more than usual. And then when your wife pops up in the local rag, then I start to know what it feels like to be Jade Goody, but without the cancer, obviously.

First off, I’ve never made a secret of the fact that RC Textiles Solutions supplies some of the top High Street chains. For some reason they won’t let me say anything about it. I’ve got this lad who runs it – one of the Indian rag trade boys - I tell you what you know, he’s a good guy. He’s given loads of these women a job. The paper was on about it being a sweat shop, that these women were “slaves”. It’s all rubbish. Number one, they don’t pay tax; two, they claim dole and all the rest of it. By the time we’ve given them some free clothes and a few quid they’re better off than if we did it legal and paid them the minimum wage.

As if the News of the Screws hadn’t had enough of me they then had me bang to rights on the Lloyds Bank ski trip to St Anton as “ordering drinks”, “dancing on tables” and “heading off to a night club”. So what? What do you think we go on ski trips paid for by banks for? The skiing? The food? It’s Austria for fuck's sake; so you get on the lash. I actually can’t believe how tame it was this year. All these lads from the bank are like rabbits in headlights, you tell them to get a round in and they have to call Alistair Darling.

To cap a bad month on the publicity front Mrs C only goes and gets herself in the Wilmslow Bugle. She’s bought this clinic out of administration which does “modern hi-tech beauty treatments”. Tit jobs and botox to me and you.

Now, the reaction to all of this sums up what my so-called friends are like.

When the News of the World came calling Tony Tighe was straight on to me pledging to put my side of the story. Luckily the Indian lad copped most of it because I was away skiing.

Every freeloading lawyer and corporate finance jockey in town knew that the ski sting was just bad luck. By the grace of Roger, eh lads?

But nobody gave the old girl a smidgen of credit for joining the ranks of the Cheshire entrepreneurs. Oh no, just tired gag after tired gag accusing me (me!) of being behind it and asking if they could get a discount on some placcy bangers and a shot of botox for her indoors.

With friends like these, eh?

I'm buying Nigeria - here's how

2009-02-05T04:06:00.000-08:00

I’ve been told to make this column uplifting. Readers don’t want to hear about doom and gloom, they want to hear tales of daring and adventure.

Well, to be fair, I don’t know where to start. I’m doing great, thank you very much.
And things are going to get even better this year. For me, anyway. I’m just about to pull off the deal of the century. Remember where you heard it first.

This doris called Kristen Heather – I think I met her at some charity do at the Sheridan Suite – and if I remember rightly she was wearing this red dress that revealed… (Get on with it – editor).

It started on the first day back after New Year, when I’d just got back from Val d'isere. I got this email marked “private”. Everyone likes one of these. The secretary leaves them for me to deal with so I don’t get mithered by all the muppets chasing unpaid invoices and begging letters from corporate financiers who haven’t done a deal in six months.

This lad at the Kristen Heather Investment Bank in the Isle of Man must have heard that I’m a bit of an international wheeler dealer and all-round entrepreneurial guru and asked for a bit of help. They don’t send these letters to anyone, you know. Anyway, they’ve managed to get this grant from some European fund to back this consortium of Russkis who are banged up in some Gulag in Siberia for backing the wrong side in the last scrap over there.

They’ve got about £2bn in a bank in the Isle of Man and need me to set up a facility to get their hands on it. Basically I get a 10 per cent fee. I love a win-win deal like this, and I’m always keen to keep the wheels of international finance oiled. All they need is a few grand to get in motion – the usual “performance bond”, which is normal in cases like this, and we’re on our way.

So, in the spirit of spreading my joy around, once the cash clears I’ve already got my eye on one of those Bombardier Global Express XRS jets and a new Ferrari 599, just like the one Cristiano Ronaldo pranged in the tunnel on Altrincham Road (the wall was never ten yards away – boom boom). I also quite fancy one of those islands in that resort in Dubai that’s shaped like a map of the world. Trouble is, where would you buy? Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have already bought Ethiopia, which is mental, and some Russian has bought Iceland.

I mentioned all this in the email to the lad who’s setting it all up for me. He said I should buy Nigeria. Strange choice.

On the straight and narrow

2009-01-13T01:53:00.000-08:00

Right, time to put the record straight. These rumours have started getting back to me and I need to be clear. I did not have a scrap with the doorman from Ithaca. And I did not get so drunk I forgot where I live and had to spend the night in a police station after a taxi driver dropped me off in Denton. None of that happened.
I am not being investigated by the Horse Racing Board for betting against the glue pot on four legs I happen to own. I have backed it to lose on Betfair, but that’s hardly inside information is it? It couldn’t win the donkey derby on Blackpool beach.
Back to work, we’ve started the new year on a bit of a high. On the QT, last year we started doing some systems solution work for some government department or other – I’m boring myself, so I’ll spare you the details. Now the government has cut payment terms to a week, we have been able to hang on to more of our cash and extend our own terms to suppliers for six months.
They’re so desperate they don’t even complain! Brilliant. Only problem is we haven’t found a decent deposit rate since the Russian mafia pulled the plug on that nice little laundrette they were running out of Iceland.
It’s absolutely disgraceful that the government won’t guarantee all deposit rates at the same rate we used to enjoy and guarantee 10 per cent rates in the Isle of Man as well. I worked hard for that money and deserve to see it grow. Do you think I actually like going to the Isle of Man to see my fund manager? Did you know they smother their chips with cheese? My part of the solutions industry is also facing unfair competition from China and the French and we need a ban on foreign imports. Today. I’ve risked everything on my schemes to export our gear to Burma and Laos, but the level of export credits we get is miserable. We need more. It’s also essential that they completely abolish tax rates for entrepreneurs. Don’t they understand how tough it is out there?
I told all this to that bloke John Young from the Bank of England who came to see me the other day. He uses what I say to tell Gordon Brown what to do with the economy. It got a bit technical so I had to get my FD in when he asked me if I thought the PBR would affect the LIBOR and the FTSE, or something. Sorry mate, I said, ask me one on sport.
Poor bloke, I let him have it with both barrels. I don’t think he knew what hit him. The long and short of it: the biggest problem with this country is scroungers always looking for handouts.

Desperate times call for desperate measures

2008-12-01T03:48:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we all have to do things we don’t like: it’s called sacrifice. I’ve told all male employees to stop sending so many emails. Frankly if they’re sending out more than 20 emails a day they should put a skirt on and I’ll pay them 15 grand a year and change their job title to secretary.

I told the whole staff last month that I was knocking the Christmas party on the head to save a few quid. I blamed falling orders and a tightening credit market. I think it worked. That’s the good thing about a recession, you can really frighten people. The claims for flexible working and pay rises have mysteriously stopped. We don’t have sales guys whining to me about their bonuses. Frankly, they think they’re lucky to have a job at all.

To be honest, the works Christmas party is one do I can well do without. For a start, over the years they’ve got a bit out of hand. We’ve had resignations, pregnancies and claims for harassment. It was costing me a fortune in lawyers bills. And it’s never the fit ones that beef about a bit of groping is it?

The REAL reason is I’ve cancelled it is that I’ve lost my security bloke and I’m feeling a bit, you know, vulnerable. He’s gone into hiding after someone outed him on the internet as a member of the BNP. I had NO idea. He never said much to be honest, he just smacked anyone who came too close to me in Panacea. Thinking on, the last time he vanished he said he’d been "on business in Burnley" and came back smelling of petrol.

So, a bit of austerity never hurt anyone. Frankly, we had the Chrimbo do pencilled in for the night before I was due to take an early morning helicopter trip down to the gaff in Abersoch for “a winter barbie on the beach” at Tony “Fordy” Ford’s place.

It’s all wrapped up with him splitting up with Andy “Cambo” Campbell. As far as I’m concerned that’s two more invites to hellraising Christmas parties this year.

Sadly, the racier end of the party market seems to have gone tame. I blame that Jacqui Smith, our so-called “home secretary”, which is probably where she should spend more time, ironing shirts and answering the phone. If you didn’t see it, she reckons taking clients to lap dancing bars is “bizarre”. I’ll tell you what’s “bizarre” – she’s the one who bowls up at the Commons with her nellies bursting all over the place after all. Maybe it could be a new revenue stream for New Labour – she’s not my type, but she’s got one or two colleagues who I’d slip £20 into their G-string, no problem. In like Flint, if you catch my drift.

Wood ducks - the lot of them

2008-11-06T06:21:00.000-08:00

These are tough times, and us fast-living, hard working entrepreneurs have begun to appreciate that some of the population are not enjoying the benefits of the capitalist system to the same extent as us.
To show what a nice guy I am, I am offering an olive branch to the locals who I upset with my resi plans. I’ve pulled the lads off site on all our RC Residential schemes in Cheshire. This has been done with the encouragement of our funders, Kaupthing Bank.
I then threw a big party in the garden of Cashman Towers for my special birthday. Mrs C got Paul Young to sing a few numbers – I think he snogged her sister round the back of the Altrincham Grammar School disco circa 1979. Mrs C even held a raffle round the council estates in Alderley and Knutsford so one lucky family could come and join in the fun on the night – well, to see the sound check and have a free can of wifebeater before the proper guests arrived.
And with tickets at £10 a pop we made a few quid. I tell you what though, these simpletons just never read the small print do they? As we were herding them out some of them tried to say they thought they were tickets to see a concert. Come on, get real. As if. It’s just what the banks have had to deal with when they started giving mortgages to the audience on Jeremy Kyle.
I’ve also invested millions to tidy the area up a bit. A mate put me on to getting a Woodland Creation Grant, which paid for a few trees – and we’ve tried to protect the locals from certain hazards. We bought the house next door, which had some land, a duck pond and a boggy field in the grounds. Obviously Mrs C was worried little kiddies could wander in and drown in the pond, or get stuck in the field, so I put a fence around it and made it clear they weren’t to enter. I was nice about it. You know me, I like a joke, but these in-breds just didn’t understand I WAS JOKING when I put up a sign saying “trespassers will be shot”.
The masterplan is to organise some community activities. Sadly, our first go backfired. Literally. A few of the lads came over for a duck shoot. I invited my MP George Osborne and a couple of Russian lads with a few quid to throw about. There we were, popping away, having a great time, feathers everywhere, before the rozzers turned up because the locals had complained. It was bedlam. But this is not about animal rights. It’s class war.
The bitter stench of envy hangs heavy in the air over Cheshire these days. The hand of peace is still outstretched. But so, friends, is my patience.

QUESTION TIME

2008-10-10T04:01:00.000-07:00

I was in very the first Insider 42 under 42 in 1991 when I’d made my second million at Cashman Computer Leasing. And you do the maths – I was barely 22. What a performer, eh?
Unfortunately I’m out of the country, sorting out a deal in Belize, but I thought I’d treat you all to my answers to some of the questions they’ve asked the boys and girls who’ve been in this list over the years. I’m a giver after all.

Who inspires you?
He can drink, he can play cricket, he can tell a joke and he’s walked over the Alps with an elephant and a crew of spastics. And he’s recovered from leukemia – there is none to compare with Sir Beefy of Botham.

Best piece of business advice ever received?
Have chopper, will travel (Tim Knowles).

Ideal board member (dead or alive)?
I’d have to say Nicholas van Hoogstraten. He knew the golden rule of the property trade like no one else – that he who blinks first gets bummed.

Do you have a favourite politician?
Maggie Maggie Maggie – Oi Oi Oi. Mind you, I met that Caroline Flint (ex-housing minister) when Labour were in town last month. She knows sod all about the resi market, but marks out of two? I’d give her one.

Mastermind specialist subject?
Eh?

Favourite Book?
Eh?

Best lads trip ever?
The Ford Campbell golf trip to Menorca, no further comment required – tour rules apply.

What’s your claim to fame?
The Wilmslow Messenger once had a front-page story titled “Is this the most dangerous man in Cheshire?” when I returned a test drive a bit too quickly to Stratstone and scattered a few schoolies. In my defence, I was only 16 and I’ve calmed down since then. That and I introduced Freddie Flintoff to Paul Beck.

As a child what did you want to be when you grew up?
After my football career was cruelly cut short by injury (see above), business became my field of dreams.
Are there enough opportunities in the North West to satisfy your ambitions?
Depends who’s asking. If it’s the current Mrs C, then yes, of course there is darling and I’ve told the Congolese embassy they can build their own golf courses.

What’s your karaoke classic?
“Simply the Best”.

Any regrets?
My racehorse – Flash the Cash – is a gluepot on four legs. Never again.

Who’d play you in a film of your life?
This is where the muppets say Daniel Craig, but as far as I’m concerned he’s a posh kid from Chester. It’s obvious isn’t it: George Clooney is the only one with the brooding presence now Brando’s pegged it.

GET REAL IN MALLORCA

2008-09-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

And they say August is quiet. I bombed over to my gaff in Mallorca for most of it. Part of the making it up to Mrs C has been a new swimming pool at the house.
It’s got our family coat of arms (two Hummers, a pile of cash and a bare arse) in a mosaic. All guests have to dive to the bottom and kiss it. We’ve also got a new helipad built on the roof, which is handy when our Russian neighbours pop round for a few steaks.
It’s all gone mental over there, but for once it’s not me they’re gossiping about. This bloke who drives my Bentley Azure for me has been ferrying Paul “The Plumber” Davidson about. Or should that be “El Fontelero”? He’s got some front that bloke. One minute he’s bankrupt, but he’ll tell anyone ready to stand a round in the Admiral Rodney that he’s trousered it away. Then he’s flying about on Dave Russell’s plane and getting some Arab lads to back his new
invention that’s going to make him millions (like the last one). Next thing he’s going to buy Real Mallorca footy club.
Because I’m such a nice guy I put him in touch with my very good pal Mark Guterman, who’s told him all he knows about running a football club after his spellbinding terms in charge of Wrexham and Chester. The Penguin and the Plumber, what a double act!
The island has been going nutty for him; he’s in every paper, every day. He’s been looking around a house in Cala Llamp worth €26 million and everyone wants to buy him a drink. But if I was a betting man – and I am, as it goes – I reckon he won’t be buying it. And if I’m honest, some of his boasting and swaggering is getting a bit over the top. He’s starting to give Cheshire entrepreneurs a bad name.
So, with all that malarkey going on you wouldn’t think it was a holiday; it was like Chelford with sunshine.
Mrs C and the rest of the silicone jubblies brigade got all giddy when they heard that Alec “Craigy” Craig was in Puerto Andratx with his brood. Don’t get me wrong, Craigy’s alright for a lawyer, but I couldn’t see why they were getting their knickers in a twist. Apparently one of the dizzy bints had got lashed at the 40th of everybody’s favourite estate agent Stuart “Rushy” Rushton. She overheard someone telling the story that they’d met this bloke from Chester who’s oldest lad is that Daniel Craig, the James Bond actor bloke. The dozy cow put two and two together and came up with Craigy siring kids when he was 11 years of age. Women, unbelievable.
Anyway Rushy’s do was brilliant, shifting big houses in Mobberley isn’t as easy these days, but you’ve still got to let rip for the big one.
Someone should try telling that to the property lads. Have you seen how the invites for the golf days have dried up this year? Fair play to Hurstwood for sticking at it, but I did notice that it’s moved from the Marriott Worsley to the Rawtenstall Municipal or somewhere.
I’ve certainly never known a time like it.

I’ve had a death threat

2008-08-01T09:21:00.000-07:00

It’s all kicked off on the Edge. And it’s my duty to put the record straight. I don’t officially live in Alderley Edge myself (it’s complicated), but obviously I have a few interests. The RC Resi Devs PLC flag is currently flying proudly over a nice little scheme overlooking the cricket club – provisionally named Cashman Towers – think a turreted cowboy ranch with a neo-Georgian twist. Or so I thought.
Standing between me and progress is a gang of geriatric bleeding hearts having a mega whinge about the improvements we’re making to THEIR village. This lynch mob gathered with their pitch forks at the Girl’s School of all places to demand my head on a plate. All because they reckon the houses being built by the new breed of Cheshire entrepreneurs, the footballers and their WAGs are too flash. Which is rubbish. Money talks and Alderley walks, and rightly so. These houses are better than the dreary dross they’re replacing. Progress, see.
Some of these designer birds responsible have got cracking taste – take that Dawn Ward (I would – fnarr), her fellah only ever played for muppet clubs like Blackburn and Bradford but it was enough to get a stiletto in the solid oak door and there’s no stopping her now. You should hear Dawn and Mrs C when they compare notes on wet-rooms, hot tubs, home cinemas and the rest. Point them at the jumps and they’re off.
But once again we see the British disease of knocking the successful, trying to tangle us up in so much red tape, intimidation and malicious envy that we lose heart. Only this time there’s been a much more sinister twist. I can’t prove it, but it’s no coincidence that I’ve had silent phone calls, potatoes shoved in the tailpipe of the Bentley and a blatant death threat.
The angry brigade blabbed to the papers that “developers had declined to take part in the debate” – and reckoned “a handful were spotted sitting quietly at the back of the hall”. But if the lunatics have taken over the asylum why put yourself in the firing line? I’ve had to get extra security on the house, you know.
The Jones boys have copped for some mither as well, but then they do pretty much own everything with a chimney round there.
But you just know that the moaners will soon have something else to grumble about. While most people are pleased that the Alderley by-pass is going ahead these Swampy types will be campaigning against it. But if you ask me, this rare display of common sense doesn’t go far enough. What about a congestion charge for London Road? That way we put the charity shops out of business, shift them all to Knutsford, and we can get on with expansion plans for more champagne bars and more nice houses. It’s time to make a stand for the real cultural values that have made Cheshire great.

I'm off to Mallorca tonight as a guest of El Plumbero - the new owner of Real Mallorca. I don't know how he does it, but he's going to be on the pitch before the friendly against West Brom.

Drilling a hole

2008-07-10T08:23:00.000-07:00

I’ve never seen bravery like it. Most of you won’t know Tony Tighe, quiet bloke, scouser, does something to do with promotions and what not and plays a bit of golf at Mere and in Thailand. He’d spent a couple of days under the surgeon’s knife having an op that sounded gruesome.
You wouldn’t have known it when he walked through the crowd to the tune of Star Spangled Banner to deliver his chairman’s speech at the Mere Golf Club Summer Ball – everyone was there, the young lad on bail for VAT scamming, Derek “Degsy” Hatton, Chris “Purple” Ronnie, Nick Freeman (I knew him before he was famous, by the way), including some lads I’ve become friends with. Everyone who’s anyone, basically.
There’s been a bit of a changing of the guard at Mere. Mark Boler has taken over as captain, even though he’s chairman. And TT has become chairman, even though he was the best skipper the club has ever had. Ever. The main difference between the two jobs is the captain has a lad’s night and the chairman lets birds in. At first I wasn’t sure about that. Put it this way, I don’t have my best nights out with Mrs C in tow. That said, the members don’t just bring their wives or girlfriends (never both), some of them also bring their daughters. And I tell you what, more than once I was thinking, if she was my daughter, I’d still be bathing her.
Anyway, it was a proper classy do, as you can tell. TT sorted out the raffle prize, and the lucky winner was…..me! I had a weekend in Vegas, where I hadn’t been since Mark Boler’s stag do. This Doris TT knows out there had a limo waiting for me at the airport, Champagne on tap and tickets for the best shows in town. I even had a bodyguard, not that I need it, as you know I’m pretty handy when it comes on top.
It all tied in very nicely with a few developments on the business front. I’m sure you all saw the stock market announcement that we’ve had a strategic review at RC Solutions. We’re renaming it RC Oil and Gas Explorations and Solutions. The reason being the teenage scribblers at our brokers have gone all cold on IT marketing and property and they’re looking for oil. Aren’t we all, especially with diesel at £1.40 a litre. I’ve told them all about this new product we’re beta testing on an oil well site in Newfoundland. It’s so hard to get there, apparently, so they’re never going to check are they? I could have told them it was in Iraq, or Saudi, but then they’d have started asking questions about how our insurance and security costs don’t seem to have been affected.
It’s kept up the share price and, according to the lads at Insider, I’m up to 69 in the Power 100. My favourite number!

Join the Cashman club

2008-06-04T04:19:00.000-07:00

I take my hat off to Tony “Fordy” Ford and Arnie “Arnie” Hiri for opening the doors to a proper classy bar in Manchester. I don’t know what Ithaca means, but I like the look of the place. My favourite cop show from my favourite decade was Miami Vice and they’ve nailed the look – absolutely spot on. I was telling Fordy – with my Ray Ban shades and rolled up sleeves on my Armani jacket – that he needs to push the private members thing a bit harder. They work in London. Some say they are elitist, excluding, pretentious and aimed at people with far too much money and too little common sense. I agree. That’s why we need one in Manchester more than ever before.

As you know, I own a few shares in a few select venues around and about. Keeping out the riff raff is of paramount importance. I believe in the power of a membership – no, not Quintessential and Paint, which I accepted the free offer, by the way – but the ones that really count: Royal Westmoreland, Lancaster Grammar Old Boys, Mere Golf Club and the old funny handshake brigade.

To be fair, when you’re ITK – (that’s In The Know – muppets) you don’t need to flash a piece of black plastic to get a table at San Carlo or get a new shirt from Frank Rostron – you get what you want, and you just do what you want. I was having this discussion in the sauna with Dave Russell the other week at the Midland Hotel – we weren’t staying there or anything – we just walked in. I mean, who’s going to stop us?

I’ve got a major dilemma at the moment about this congestion charge thing. I think it’s a good idea, basically. The kind of people who it will hurt should be taking the bus anyway and leaving the roads clearer for the rest of us. I don’t know how it’s happened, but I’ve signed up for Andy “Simmo” Simpson’s campaign against it. I know Simmo from his Rothschild days when we nearly bought NES Recruitment off him, but that’s a different story and not for now. Anyway, since he joined Peel he’s stayed in touch, to be fair, and he’s been right on my case about all this road charging malarkey. I think it must have been when I was on John Whittaker’s plane coming back from Euro Cup final in Moscow, my eyes glazed over a bit, but it all seemed to make sense. Next thing my name was on some letter to the council. Anyway, holding two contradictory positions at any one time isn’t the worst thing I’ve done and it always worked for Bill Clinton.

On the political front I keep being asked if I’ve done anything to make my life greener. I haven’t and I won’t. Why should I? That said I reckon I’ve spent more weekends at my place in Abersoch this year than I have at the gaff in Majorca. Does that count?

Curse of Cashman

2008-05-16T09:00:00.000-07:00

When Dermot Craven had his house turned over by the Special Police, reckoning he was washing dosh for the IRA, I was there in the American bar in Hale getting my round in and letting the world know it was all a load of tosh. I was there. I was by his side.

When Wrexham footy fans were scrawling paint on Mark Guterman’s house and calling him the penguin. Did I laugh at his misfortune? Well, just a bit, but I was there. I was by his side.

When Sale Sharks owner Brian Kennedy knocked Paul Beck to the ground, did I walk away, avoid BK’s steely glance and deny my friend? No, I did not. As Jehova is my witness, I picked Becky up and told him the truth; he nearly had BK on the ropes. I was there. I was by his side.

When they wanted to cancel Tommy McGoldrick’s membership of Mere Golf Club on the technicality that he’s been banged up in Strangeways for 10 years, who was the sole voice of tolerance for a good old boy? Who stood by a brief that stood his round on Captain’s Day more times than I care to remember? I did. I was by his side.

Which all brings me round to what’s happening to Mike Hanlon at the moment. Mike’s a top lad, looks a bit like Austin Powers – and he’s been no end of mither with the relic hugging so-called “heritage” lobby in the Capital of Culture. Some of Mike’s lads got a bit carried away with the sledgehammers and knocked out a few old bricks or something, I’m sketchy on the details. The council gave him the wink, but some local tourist guide got a bit uppity.

He sent the boy Hanlon a snotty email, calling him a disgrace and worse. Mike, quite rightly, told this herbert to stick his opinions in a nicely-worded reply, but of course this is and the emails concerned were soon all over the local rag. Where are cities going to be if they scare off developers who are prepared to take a risk and stick their balls on the line? What do you want, muppets? A city of the future, or a museum?

Anyway, I emailed Mike to tell him I’m there for him. I’m by his side, just like I have been for all these other lads. And do you know what he said? “Get stuffed, Roger, you’re a bloody curse.”

Life as a spoof

2008-04-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

Like most business people I don't see some magazine called EN. Never heard of it. Anyway, apparently I'm in it (see left). They reckon my life is a spoof. I tell you what mate, I wish it was sometimes, I wish it was.

Back home

2008-04-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

Well that didn’t last long. I tried Monaco for about two months and I was bored out of my mind. The casinos might be rammed full of the beautiful people from Eastern Europe but give me a proper night out at Players in Hale Barns any day of the week.

I’ve patched it up with Mrs C as well. Which is a relief, we had a proper sit down and cleared the air.

I promised to stop dipping my pen in the company ink. She told me if I even thought about such dalliances again she’d super glue my pecker to my upper thigh. I think she means it as well. I like a deal like that: win, win.

Between me, you and the gatepost I think she saw what divorce did to her old school pal Heather Mills, when she was ranting like a lunatic on the Six O Clock news having got a great deal less than the £125million she hoped for. Frankly, she never had a leg to stand on.

Back in blighty, I’m diversifying like there’s no tomorrow. The whole interweb stuff is looking after itself, especially with all the spam email we’re churning out. The ads for blue pills and “male enhancement” are going down a storm, we’re getting a 0.00001 per cent return rate, which given the amount we churn out is an unbelievable performance.

We had to sell off the clever techy stuff. Made a killing on that, started getting bad vibes about the back office, systems solutions architecture gubbins we were going to do with Northern Rock, so we sold it to these semi-autistic techies from Leeds that didn’t ask the right questions about our “vendor due diligence”. Not my problem now.

I had a lucky escape over all that business with the Nintendo Wii’s we found when that boat beached off Dorset. I had them in a lock up in Oldham and shifted most of them, but this bloke who worked for me (not me) took everyone’s money even when we’d run out of stock. I tell you honestly, I’m the victim here too.

Remember those banks that used to fall over themselves to lend to me? All gone. All of them. I’ve even been turned down by the Icelandics. How bad is that? In fact, the last thing Kaupthing did before they cut the phones off in their Manchester office was to say “Nei” to my scheme at Media City for a themed hotel. It was going to be a recreation of Upper Street in Islington, as part of the attraction for all the BBC types: estate agents, art galleries, cafés and Albanian beggars. Surely there’s a few boys out there who think it’s worth a cheeky half mill?

The pain of D.I.V.O.R.C.E

2008-03-19T15:34:00.000-07:00

Since the missus booted me out I’ve been overwhelmed with the support from my legions of mates. I tell you what, you can’t buy friends like that. Well, you can, but you know what I mean. Mark Guterman phones me every day. What a lad. Big lad, big heart.

Paul Beck has helped me take my mind off it all with some boss helicopter trips. We’re all bombing down to Cannes for that MIPIM thing. Apart from anything else we need to see how the public sector bods are spending our council tax on Russian brasses.

Me and Becky are doing a stormer on these sporting dinners. We’ve got a big one coming up for the Bolton promotion winning team of 1978, Peter “Reidy” Reid, Franky “Oh Franky” Worthington and Brian “Kiddo” Kidd. As long as we can get Frank to get his tackle out, we should have a great night. After that we’ve got an evening with David “Maysie” May as part of our “legends” series.

I’m gutted about the Supercasino getting torpedoed. RC Solutions had the contract in the bag for all the, er, solutions and systems stuff. We’re thinking we might have to get together with the council and come up with a better idea. Some of the lads are already talking about a Super Knocking Shop, but you’ll have the Millie Tant brigade up in arms.

If things look like I’m being taken to the cleaners on the old D.I.V.O.R.C.E, then there will be a wholesale emptying of bank vaults in the Isle of Man and a lot of very happy sick little kiddies benefiting from my generosity. We all know that kids touch the heart strings, and I’d rather they had it than that greedy cow.

All her mates down at the golf club have been turning her head with tales of how much she’s going to take me for. Luckily for me, not so for her, I use Pannones for getting me out of scrapes with the VAT, so I told her she couldn’t use those lovely ladies. She’s currently talking to that lot who advertise with the picture of the Porsche with the WAS HIS number plate. Outrageous.

You won’t believe what she’s going for. She even believes my rich list entry. This new brief has told her she can have a pop at my future earnings. What future? Since President Brown started nationalising the banks and frightening off the gamblers there isn’t a future for this country.

I better keem schtum on some of the things we’re going to hit her with when it comes to court, but we’ve been adding up what she might be able to invoice the Daily Sport for if she was to get out the new pair of funbags I bought for her at Transform.

The alternative, of course, is going round there with a red rose between my teeth and my cheeky smile. It’s worked before. Maybe it’s worth another try.

Out on my arse

2008-02-07T07:55:00.000-08:00

It doesn’t rain, it pours and I’m not just talking about the weather. No sooner was I back from Barbados that I found some scrotes had attacked my house. Windows smashed, garage doors like an explosion in a paint factory. Thank Christ the Hummer wasn’t out front. Frankly, Alderley’s not seen anything like this since the Hamas branch of the United supporters club popped round to Rio’s gaff to politely ask if holding out for an ivory backscratcher and a helicopter to training wasn’t a tad excessive.

Problems on the home front as well. Mrs Cashman has changed the locks and is looking to become Mrs half-my-cashwoman. It’s all come from laying off the au pair, following a bit of financial restructuring. Mrs C for once in her life took it upon herself to take a few of my suits down to the dry-cleaners and wallop, mayhem. I told her the Cheshire Companions gold card wasn’t mine but she wasn’t having any of it. If this one goes all the way to court it could cost me big time.

If it weren’t for the tax-crazy President Brown and his Jocko pal, that one with the eyebrows, I’d say that it might be time to start cashing in on a few ventures. I’m weighing up a tactical move to Monaco. Alan “Murph” Murphy – a top man incidentally – and a few of the boys have been out there for years now as an advance party. Frankly, it’d be a relief to work in an environment where there’s less nose-poking and more respect for the entrepreneur.

I’ve considered packing up and heading for the Land of the Free before now, but it looks like they might be taking leave of their senses again by sticking Slick Willy Clinton’s Doris in the Oval Office – so to speak.

The Yanks have got it right, apart from Tom “Hicksy” Hicksy and his pal George Gillett, owners of Liverpool FC, who are finding out what a touchy lot the Scousers can be. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans for a taco an hour, that’s the US way, and not a complaint from anyone. Rafa Benitez even seems to have even found room for a couple in the first team, which is good of him.

Give Hicksy his due, he said he’d pull off the refinancing of the club and he has. Wish I had his bankers - every bank in town seems to have forgotten what a track record is and I’ve frankly had enough. It’s off to the Riviera to call a few old favours in and get back on track. I’m a winner and in the end, I’ll win. My favourite film tells us that “What we achieve in life echoes in eternity”. Couldn’t have put it better myself.

Sacked on Facebook

2008-01-04T04:03:00.000-08:00

I told you things were going to get tough this year. You won’t believe who’s been signing the visitors book at Begbies Traynor. And I blame the banks, frankly. And the “wine bar” developers who’ve been paying silly money for sites (with a h).

Our property development arm RC (property) Solutions (2006) has gone into administration. We had no choice really once the bank told us they wanted their money back. We’d sorted this monster scheme in Northwich – shops, offices, a bit of resi in there – but the subcontractors were overrunning on the costs – all the Poles are serving sausages at the Christmas market - and Mike Connett has basically cornered the market in that part of mid-Cheshire.

It meant we had to lay off a load of staff, but the good news is because we ringfenced the one company and loaded it with all sorts of other liabilities we didn’t have to pay anything more than the bare minimum of redundo pay. I thought it would be a bit retro to sack them by text, so I poked them on Facebook instead. It was mayhem when they found out so I left my Hummer in the garage that day in case it got smashed up. To be fair, we gave the staff a few shopping days notice so they could take back all their kiddies Christmas presents.

So, that was all a bit of a nightmare for me and so to cheer myself up I bought a place at Royal Westmoreland on Barbados off John “the farmer” Morphet. We’re very much looking forward to asking him what he thinks now that his old caravan parks business has just been sold for even more money. He used to say he’d done the deal of the century. Maybe not, John.

I’ve never been a believer in the value of humility. And neither, clearly, does my old mate Paul “the Plumber” Davidson, who is once again regaling the diners of Manchester and Cheshire with his grand plans. He might dress like a striking miner, but every time I’ve seen him lately he’s had a carrier bag full of £50 notes on him. At first I thought he must have become Mickey Thomas’s new best mate, but he picked up the tab for me and Mark Guterman when we were having a bit of nosebag in the Alderley Bar and Grill. A couple of days later I was on the train to London and he paid for my ticket. In cash. Top bloke, always liked him.

On the leisure side I’ve been enjoying the shooting. Bagged a few grouse and a brace of rabbits on a shooting trip to the Trough of Bowland with Richard Topliss from the Royal Bank of Scotland and a few of the boys. The next trip out was a bit marred when one of the lads found a dead body in the woods. He marked that down on the card as “various”, but it shouldn’t really count, to be fair.

Sleeping on the job

2007-10-22T10:06:00.000-07:00

How silent does a silent partner have to be? Be honest now, you stick a couple of hundred grand into some hare-brained restaurant scheme and you want a bit more than a drinks tab and a fifty-fifty chance of flogging it to Derek Lilley when he next comes out of retirement. You want cashflow, a full house every night and some kind of say in what the menu looks like.

In the last couple of months I’ve passed on a couple of these so-called investment opportunities in the leisure business. You basically have to stick a load of dosh in a pot marked “funny money” and think of it as an extended lads trip to Puerto Banus. You have a laugh along the way, fair enough, but don’t expect to come out with much. If you do, it’s bonus time.

I’ve no idea where Tony “Fordy” Ford and Paul “Johno” Johnson are up to with that Ithaca “nite club” gaff, except they ended up falling out with the Catholic Church next door. There can only be one winner when you take on the Pope, lads. Haven’t you read the da Vinci Code?

My old mate Steve “Jacko” Jackson has stuck a few quid into this new pub in Preston – Cocktail Factory - which I’m told is “a new concept in nightlife for Preston’s more discerning socialite!” With a line like that it’s got to be a winner. Give Jacko his due, he sure knows how to mix business and pleasure.

Now, there’s been a lot of rubbish been talked about what went down at the Insider 42 Under 42 dinner last month where a pitching contest got a bit tetchy. What do you expect when you mix up clever lads with bottles of Pinot Grigio? You’re bound to get some fireworks. Some of the anti-Manc banter went a bit far, but the guilty parties are making amends by joining Greg Davis on his quest to build a boxing club in Wythenshawe with a charity “white collar fight night”. You wouldn’t fancy stepping into the ring with Greg, who used to be a bouncer at the Hacienda, but I hear that Mike Perls “of wisdom” is having a go and I reckon I could do him, easy. They say little fellahs get nasty, but he’ll be off the pace and knackered chasing round after all them kids he’s been siring.

Finally, I’ve piled in with Kenni James – great lad, by the way - on his new radio station, Tameside Radio – 103.6 FM. To be fair I assumed it was down London way, but it turns out you pick up a signal in Alderley on a windy day. He plays Lady In Red for Mrs C every morning, just as she’s getting on the rowing machine, which keeps her happy. Funny lad, Kenni. I can never really tell what he’s saying, but on the radio he’s even better than the legend that is DLT, clear as a bell. Anyway, I won’t be such a silent partner after all, he wants me to be the “voice of business” on the pre-breakfast show. Wey, hey, Take it to the (Staly) Bridge.

Going global

2007-10-02T07:27:00.000-07:00

Everywhere you look there’s someone telling you to expand overseas. Export experts and globalisation racketeers telling you the latest trend. These people can’t tell me anything. In fact, they make me laugh.

Forget call centres in India, we’ve been doing that for years. Forget about getting a shed full of Chinese kids bolting circuit boards together. I wrote the book on that one. Nope, the real white hot heat of the globalised revolution is the opening of our new service centre and programming laboratory in Burma.

I’ve been out there a few times and it’s really going places. It’s one of those up-and-coming countries where things work with military precision. Once I’ve got my team in place I’m thinking of taking a few of the lads over for a sniff about. They could do with a few more golf courses; there’s a job for you Stevie James! The roads aren’t up to much once you get out of Rangoon – I’m sure there are plenty of contractors who know how to sort that out. It’s going to be brilliant once we start looking at the seaside resorts. Imagine Dubai meets Phuket. If Derek “Degsy” Hatton can make it in Cyprus with his botox clinic and the properties he’s flogging then I have to think we just can’t fail on this one.

That’s just another example of what I like doing best, opening doors for my pals to go and make a few quid.

I’ve also been learning a bit more about the diamond business from reading that Louise Tickle woman in the pinko green corner of Insider magazine. By the time I’d even got to the end of that article where she was going on (and on) about conflict diamonds I was right on the blower to Laurie “Eager” Beevers at WH Ireland seeing if I could buy at any price anything with Liberia and Sierra Leone in it.

You might upset the bleeding hearts to start with, but once you’ve had the ex-professional soldiers in to secure the diamond mines, give the locals a choice to vote for the Party of Corruption or the National Liberation Front for Backhanders they get the all clear, war’s over, and everybody is happy again. Especially my portfolio. Shame “Eager” didn’t have much going on, he asked me to punt on somewhere I’d never heard of, with too few vowels, that broke the golden rule of investment – never put your money into a country ending in “stan”.

Back here in blighty meanwhile you can’t fail to have noticed that the banks are getting a kicking. All the cheeky chappies with smiles who were falling over themselves to lend me ten times profit to acquire some fly-by-night telecoms company based on the edge of Yorkshire have suddenly gone very very quiet.

While I’m on, did anyone see that rubbish on television called The Dinner Party. To cut a long story short, the main character is handsome, successful, rich, has women crawling all over him, offers jobs to his neighbours and had forthright opinions about socialists and scroungers. Recognise anyone? And he was called Roger. Can you get any more obvious than that. What a liberty. Then they started to show that he was a vain bully with a dysfunctional kid. I was straight on the phone to my people – well, Mark Manley, my brief on such occasions – but there’s nothing I can do about it. This country, unbelievable.

THE DINNER PARTY - A STATEMENT

2007-09-10T01:26:00.001-07:00

Having taken legal advice I am now considering what action to take following the broadcast of the dinner party on BBC 1 last night.

In that programme a character called "Roger" was played by Rupert Graves.

The Roger in the programme was:

a) successful
b) rich
c) right wing
d) had no real friends
e) a bully
f) lived in the south of England

I was therefore extremely concerned that this was a thinly veiled portrayal of me should have been broadcast without due consultation.

The man on the telly?

2007-07-31T06:34:00.000-07:00

Right, I’m asking you lot advice for a change. I don’t make mistakes. Well, apart from that dodgy internet dog food business we floated on AIM, tried to buy back, then ended up breaking it up and using the cash shell to reverse in a luxury car hire business this fat lad from Wrexham reckoned he could franchise. It went bust and he legged it with the cash. He was last seen selling watches on the beach at Puerto Banus. We’re all allowed one mistake and I took my eye off the ball.

No, the question a shy and retiring entrepreneur from the right side of Cheshire wants to know is this: should I take the opportunity to raise my profile even more and get my handsome face on the telly? I’ve come close a few times. I did the pilot for Dragon’s Den, took their half baked advice, ignored it, but left the dragons begging me to let them buy into RC Solutions, I’ve had them all after me since. That Theo Paphitis even invited me down to Millwall for some jellied eels and lavish hospitality. Very nice it was too, certainly a different kind of day out from the time I went there with XXXX XXXX and his mates from XXXXXXXXX. What a day. You wouldn’t believe he was a XXXX partner with XXXXXXX now. A bit too violent, even for my liking. (Blanked out on advice of the lawyers).

Anyway, I did screen tests for this Channel 4 thing where I had to hang out with a load of poor people for a bit, give them some advice on how to sort themselves out and chuck a few grand at them. To be fair, the bird from the production company was quite tasty, but I bottled it at the last minute. You know me, I like to give money to charity on the quiet, nothing flash, just a few coins in the right places. Much as the old ego said – “Roger, do it, Roger do it,” just as it does every time I send my bank in Guernsey a few more millions, the head said “Don’t”. There are too many bodies buried out there. It could have ended up costing me ten million squids. Easy.

Now I’ve been asked by ITN Productions if I’d like to be profiled for a series called Britain’s Richest Men on the Discovery Channel, which will be watched by pretty much nobody, but that won’t matter to the missus. She’ll be happy enough inviting them into our lovely home, getting our interior designer Dawn Ward to blather on about how much she spent and what great taste she’s got, and all that sort of caper. Then just as Mrs C did when Cheshire Life came round, when she bought a copy for all 246 of her closest personal friends, it has a limited view. She’s already planning on a getting it on DVD and having a party at our place. I think she’s already booked Charlie Wolmersley to supply the pinot grigio. None of the people that matter to me will be any the wiser.

Does it sound like a plan?

Everything's gone green

2007-07-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

This green agenda is really getting my goat. No, not the eco warrior stuff, I’ve said my piece on that, there’s money to be made and I intend to make it. No, the green with envy stuff that starts with committees in parliament grilling the private equity boys and ends with some scrote scraping his keys down the side of Mrs Cashman’s Mercedes SLR outside our favourite new restaurant, London Road in Alderley Edge.
It’s high time the people in this country stopped taxing
entrepreneurs altogether. Instead of taking OUR money from OUR pockets, the government should be thanking us for employing people and for spending so much money in the economy. I reckon I must spend at least £2m a year on ‘stuff’ – that’s £350,000
a year in VAT straight to the government to go and waste on the National Health Service.
I refuse to get involved in a discussion with these nasty, bitter, hateful people who sleep under the blanket of the nanny state – that I provide – then have the temerity to question the means by which I provide it. I’d rather they just said "thank you" and went on their way.
Moving on, who says you can’t make money out of restaurants? Tim Bacon now has the best part of 20 million big ones after
flipping The Living Room. Quality. My mate Paul Heathcote is now chasing the same dream and splashing the dosh on some new scran houses as well. I told him ages ago to ditch all that poncey stuff and pile on the quality northern grub. He’s certainly taken my advice with London Road, which is just what me and the boys want from our nose bag providers: it’s done out in classy beige, glass and chrome with some hanging lamps. The food was ace as well.
The golf day season is upon us. I never miss Captain’s Day at Mere, though it won’t ever be the same again without Bernard Manning (RIP). The big man was never a racist, one year at Mere he picked an Asian lad out of the crowd and ripped into him for being a graphic designer. Why would be do that if he was racist?
No such jesting at the Hurstwood golf bash, just some proper Lancashire backslapping from Stephen "Ashy" Ashworth and the property boys. But it was either incredibly brave, or very stupid,
to put new Bentleys just to the side of the 18th hole at Worsley Park. I am reliably informed that was the reason why Dominic "swing low" Fussell left his clubs in the car this year.
Finally, I tucked my head round the door at Spinningfields for some bash organised by Andy "Spin" Spinoza – you’d think he’d have shook that barrow boy accent off by now – featuring that shrieker out of M-People, the one with the voice like a fork on a plate. Not a bad little do, but you get all sorts of herberts at these things, where you mix business with the trendies. Armani suits and ironic Northern Quarter-wear cheek by jowl is never a good mix. They look scruffy and the air is just too thick with envy. Muppets

I'm going green

2007-06-13T04:50:00.000-07:00

You can’t turn on the telly these days without some hippy wailing on about the future of the planet. Chill out. It’ll be all right. Why so negative? As my business coach, Mike Finnigan, taught me: always look adversity in the face and spot an opportunity. They did. You can.
So, rather than turning the lights off and worrying about rising sea levels, I say: embrace the new tomorrow. A mate of mine is planting grapes in Alderley Edge for a future crop of Cheshire Chablis. And, before you ask, it isn’t Charlie Womersley.
I’ve also got this admission document for a new company floating on AIM that is going to make squillions. They make a hand-held nuclear reactor that fits into the socket on your Range Rover’s dashboard. When your idling along the M56 it generates enough electric to fuel Rob Cotton’s sunbed.
Think how much you’d get from it if you plugged it into Tim Knowles’ chopper.
I can’t tell you anymore than that because I’ve been made an "insider" due to one of the directors telling me more than he should have done.
Anyway, enough of that. There seems to be an unhealthy obsession with my social life since I appeared in Hello magazine with Dougie Barrowman at Silverstone. After a bit of property development and motor racing he’s now doing what he does best – investing in companies and making a few quid. Quite rightly he got sick of all the arse kissing that goes with being in corporate finance.
Me and Dougie go way back. Me, him and Tony "Fordy" Ford bought our Aston Martins on the same day back in 1997 to celebrate Labour getting in (honest). Mine was the most expensive, by the way.
Went to some do at the Midland Hotel in Manchester run by a mob called Manchester Pros (not that sort). Only went to hear John "Timmo" Timpson give some well-heeled (ha ha) tips and generally talk cobblers. Ten minutes into the keynote and all he’d talked about was Iraq. I realised it was a posh bloke off the telly instead. Simpson? Timpson? I knew I should have crossed my Ts.
I last went to Liverpool to remind Simon "Eddie" Edwards of Midas Capital about the importance of keeping an eye on my money. Sticking it in a biscuit tin doesn’t get me the compound growth that will fund a healthy retirement, but hopefully "Old Big Ed" knows what he’s doing. At their fifth birthday party I hung about to talk to Lord Wade (no nicknames, chaps, show some respect for a class act) about how the Tories are going to get back in next time. Chewed on a warmed-up spring roll and knocked back the orange juice. Whatever they do with a 1 per cent management fee, they don’t splurge on the catering. Good lads. I like prudence in a fund manager.

The Price of Fame

2007-04-28T03:54:00.000-07:00

I’ve been doing a column in Insider for about six months now and to be honest, I’ve got mixed feelings about carrying it on. First of all some people reckon I don’t even exist! They reckon I’m made up. Frankly if I didn’t exist, you’d have to invent me.

I bowled up at the Insider Young Professionals Awards with Vincent “Vinny” Connaugton and a few of the boys from Hale. How would I know that if I don’t exist?

Went to the FA Cup semi final at Old Trafford with some of the Blackburn Roverrrs lot from around town: Alec "Craigy" Craig, Andrew "Ducky" Duckworth and Roland Horridge all sorting out drivers for our convoy of a Bentley, a Range Rover and my Hummer. Me and Andrew "Dicky" Dick were just fellow travellers (he's Leeds). We pulled up next to the ground and some peasant from Lancashire called us Chelsea fans. "We're Blackburn," said Neil "Ducky" Duckworth. "Not in them fucking cars you're not, you look like the Russian mafia," said the scruffy twat. Has he never heard of the Ribble Valley?

Anyway, someone from the NWDA has complained that I give entrepreneurs a bad name – like he’d know.

Then there was a sticky situation on the door at the Newz bar in Liverpool the other week that was smoothed over by one of the local property boys recognising me – but it can get a bit much. Apparently the next best thing to a footballer for a Liverpool wannabee WAG is a Hummer driving business bad boy like me.

I get asked to speak at events as well. I can hopefully put a few minds at ease by dispelling rumours that I’ve been approached to compere this year’s Asian Business Federation bash up at Preston. Apparently after getting some muppet off the Apprentice last year, they got a bit of stick, and want a proven business success this time. Well it’s not me. Not that I’d be averse, but there are plenty of lads and indeed lasses who’d be more suited. Shaid Luqman would be good. He's got a tale to tell.

The danger is when you’re known as a player with a bit of the midas touch is that people are always after you to put a few quid into this or that. The amount of bars I could have had a piece of, it doesn’t bear thinking about.

We’ve been tapped up for sponsorship for the Manchester International Festival – which is good. I’m a big culture fan myself. I like the opera. But they don’t like it when you join in, do they?

And then there’s the charity bashes. If it’s not abseiling the CIS Tower it’s doing some Apprentice-style do at Sam’s. If you say no you’re difficult, if you accept everything they think you’re turning into that Yo Sushi bloke who’s never off the telly. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

It’s even worse if you’re married. One of the boys got hitched to some Latvian piece a couple of years back, quiet as a mouse at first but now she knows the lingo she’s not happy sitting around watching Midsomer Murders and Jeremy Kyle.

She had her heart set on owning a deli and wanted the poor chap to stump up the Duane Eddies for it. How do you say no? Long story short – they ended up with a little gaff in Hale, “Cous Cous Bang Bang”. Cost the Earth and she lost interest after a few months anyway. It’s a nail bar now.

We’ve all got our crosses to bear though, and to be fair a couple of heads-ups I’ve had from Insider readers look like they’re coming up trumps. And let’s face it, the thrill of the chase is what it’s all about.

Massive International Pissup in the Med - That's MIPIM!

2007-04-04T04:12:00.000-07:00

Been out at this property do in Cannes, MIPIM, as you do – although it’s a bit of a ball ache, what with Cheltenham and the cricket but it’s sort of expected. I was waiting for a nod on a couple of deals as well, and there are worse places to do business in March.

A few of the boys went via Amsterdam as per usual, but as I had business to attend to elsewhere I took up the offer from a pal of a seat on his private jet – can’t beat it, sailing past all the Easyjet muppets clogging up Nice airport with bubbles awaiting onboard..

It’s a funny old week, MIPIM. You’ve got all the cities out there with their stands trying to impress, trying to look busy so they don’t get grief for pissing away the tax-payers’ hard-earned. And then you’ve got all the property lads doing what they do best – getting mullered. There are the agents, bottom of the food chain, hanging around like sheep outside Caffe Roma, wondering why they’re there. The real deals are done elsewhere of course and those in the know aren’t telling.

Best thing this year was all the birds from Kazan, “Russia’s third capital” apparently, which all sounded like a spoof bit of marketing for the follow-up to Borat. The girls spent their days wandering around bestowing t-shirts and smiles on everyone and the evenings doing God knows what. You do hear some rumours during MIPIM week though. Some of the boys stayed down for the porn festival the week after, they’ve got some stories to tell.

Made it back to Cheltenham to chuck a few quid in Fred Done’s general direction. Didn’t back a winner all day. I was there with Paul “Becky” Beck – Freddie Flintoff’s best mate (TM) – and top insolvency chap Andrew “Dicky” Dick of Begbies, someone I’ve never had cause to have a “one of those” business conversations with. If Freddie manages to stay sober Becky has me on the bus for a trip out to the Windies.

Before I go, a word on cars. How hard is it to make a decision on a new motor? There are emissions regulations. Should you put it through the company? Should you register it to a private company so you can say the missus was driving it when you get flashed by a speed camera? Had that Louise Tickle woman mithering me about getting a bike, or, worse, a Toyota Prius. But, I’m a reasonable man, and after careful consideration of my own personal lifestyle needs, the carbon footprint and the look on the faces of the boys at Mere Golf Club when I roar into the car park for the Captain’s Golf Day I’ve decided what to do. I’m getting a Hummer.

Get this straight – mine is a North West business

2007-02-27T04:44:00.000-08:00

Down the years, loads of people have told me “You need to be in London to be taken seriously”. That’s rubbish, just look at some of the Ernst & Young entrepreneurs regional shortlist each year (we don’t all go bust you know!)

I did set up a London office once, when the dotcom stuff started making serious dough in the late 90s, before it all went tits up. Back then the Yanks wouldn’t have picked Manchester out on a map of Greater Manchester let alone England.

Got a nice deal on some space just off Soho Square, with a guy I used to do a bit of business with – the “Great White” we used to call him, a big rugby lad. He got in on the ground floor of IT publishing in the 80s and we had a few shared interests, not to mention interests in a few shares. Never fancied those stripy jackets myself, so as a rule I’ve always steered clear of the City.

Truth be told you can’t beat London for nightlife, but we had some right bother getting the right staff. Chancers would be one word. One guy I hired as sales director disappeared into thin air, only for his name to pop up in the Sundays – turned out he was a bigamist who’d pulled off some scam regarding his first wife’s inheritance! Can’t see the problem myself, if he could handle two sets of earache good luck to him.

You wouldn’t beleive the trouble you have hiring. Most of the available staff are out of work actors (muppets one and all) or young hippy European birds. Mind you, a few of them brighten up the place, especially when you’re after business in Scandinavia. Not that I get involved myself, but being on a diet doesn’t stop you reading the menu does it?

No, once clowns like Boo.com had bitten the dust and the VCs started getting cold feet we’d already made tracks back up the M1. Why fork out thousands for a London shoebox when you’ve got the likes of Lord Tom Bloxham (is he a Lord yet? I lose track) knocking out space for peanuts? It’s not rocket science.

The Great White stuck at it but ended up getting in bother over a vanity project. He wrote this rubbish erotic novel and ended up paying for its publication when the directors kyboshed publishing it through the company. Ended up hawking them door to door down the Charing Cross Road. He rung last month – he’d backed the Dome to win the supercasino.

Contact sport

2007-02-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

As far as I’m concerned business is a contact sport.
And I should know because I can play a bit.
I had trials for United and City when I was a kid.
Oldham even offered me a contract, but business is my field of dreams now.
That and the odd game of five-a-side with Rob Cotton and the boys from the National Computer Centre.
Good lad, Cotton, looks like John Terry, but he knows how to run a proper business.
We’re going to take his mob on in a proper game sometime soon.
Watch this space.
And don’t think we’ll do what Andersen’s did a few years ago and load the team with ringers from Latvia.
As for golf – I’ve got all the gear and no idea.
Got a membership at Mere, as you do.
Not that I ever play there.
They put on a cracking do though.
If you want a proper sportsman’s night out, go to the boxing.
I’ve just been with a few of the boys to see Ricky Hatton in Vegas.
Good trip, and not a muppet among them, and let’s face it, you can get a few on even the best trips. Marathon running is my game.
Like business, even if you can run, you can’t hide.
I’ve just done the Marrakech marathon – THE hardest marathon in the world: deserts, mountains, beggars and whole families on mopeds getting in your way. A bit like business, if you see what I mean.
The London marathon’s for clowns dressed as divers.
New York is for Sex and the City tourist weekend wannabees.
I sponsored one lad in that, Pete Clarke from Isis, he took six hours! I can get a deal shifted in that time.
Now I’m even thinking of sprinkling some of my strategic stardust on the world of football.
After losing a couple of buttons off my shirt on Mark Guterman’s punt at Wrexham and making a few bob out of Droylsden, I’ve got the taste for it. I’m putting a few chaps together to buy Lancaster City Football Club.
There’s a playing field next to the club’s ground – The Giant Axe – which we reckon we could get a few houses on.
Stick a fan on the board to appease the Billy Bunters, get Steve “Jacko” Jackson to send Preston North End and his lapdancing cheerleaders up for a friendly and we’re laughing.
Then I’m getting a board of directors together that will blow you away.
Kevin Roberts, chief executive of Saatchi’s to handle all our marketing and change the brand.
Deep down I think their problem has been the nickname, The Dolly Blues.
The Axe Men is better.
The Axe Men Cometh will be on all the posters.
It will strike fear into the hearts of the enemy.
I’ll make it work because deep down I’m a winner to my core.
European football within ten years, I reckon.
Maybe 15.Either way, you read it here first

Marketing genius

2007-02-16T07:47:00.000-08:00

Mad busy at the moment. This business is going like a train. We needed to
bolt a few bits on to get the cash flow going. And word has got out.
Let me tell you about this one business that was on the block. No one wanted it – I mean no one would touch it with a bargepole. The building they were in was an absolute toilet and they were making no money at all.
We bought it, and between you and me, we absolutely stole it. The bloke we bought it off, I asked him if there were anything he hadn’t told me about. Was there something that would make me very angry if I found out about it later?
He went white, said he needed to walk around the car park for an hour. When he came back he said he needed to tell
me something. He puts his wife’s mobile phone through the business. Tut Tut.
We stuck a salesman in there who used to be one of the top guys at The Accident Group and wallop! Fantastic performance.
But you know how the boys like to gossip, word has got out. I would like to refute absolutely the rumour that I am going to make six big ones from this company. That is totally incorrect. More like £8m. Sterling.
These scribblers in the city who earn so-called “big bonuses” make me laugh. They should see my dividend cheque. That’s real success.
Since I’ve started this column all the VCs have been on my case and they all want a slice of my action. Who can blame them? We’re creaming it. But I need some cash to release to do this resi scheme in Altrincham and to buy me and the missus a drum in Majorca. All the Alderley boys have got one – a mate of mine’s setting up a radio station there as well. Worth a punt, eh?
Much more fun has been the attention I’ve had from every
PR company in town. They’re all the same. In comes the boss, good patter, one of the lads; invites me to Old Trafford or the rugby. Then he sends some youngster over in a tight top, fluttering her eyelashes and dropping pencils. What’s that all about? I learned all I need to know about marketing from Chris “Nibbo” Nisbet. A great lad, for a Scouser! He was telling me the tale of how he flogged a flat to Sophie Anderton, that model who got a bit fond of the white stuff, who was on Celebrity Love Island. He did all these posters and had her lined up to be the face of his scheme. When the whole TV programme thing went Pete Tong, he ditched it and knocked up these new ones from an old photo shoot he’d done with some wannabee model he met in Mosquito. Only turned out to be Peter Crouch’s bird, queen of the Wags. Class.

Business isn’t all about work, work, work.

2007-02-16T07:45:00.002-08:00

We like to have a laugh.
In fact, I insist on it.
And if you’re going to any of the Christmas parties this year you better watch out for our boys.
Our own bash has a reputation for being creative as well as risqué.
Which means we sometimes get lap dancers to serve drinks.
Hilarious, eh? On our last team night out we all rocked up at Panacea for the last leg of a bonding session – tame in comparison to Mark Boler’s stag do, but then you can’t let rip on home turf in the same way, can you? I tell you what, there’s more silicone in there than the server farm at Net Services (what was he doing floating on AIM?).
I digress. “Wine for my men,” I roared at the waitress. “We ride at dawn!” By which time it had all kicked off.
Wayne Rooney had just slapped some other player for mithering his Doris – can’t blame him, frankly – then some bloke got his ear bitten off in a brawl, the like of which I’d not seen since Paul Beck and Brian Kennedy had a swedge outside Sale Sharks. Dangerous place this, which is a shame as the lads at Gresham had sorted us with memberships and everything.
Good lads, by the way, looks like they stole that one.
A few of the boys asked me to join them in buying my local – The Braz in Alderley Edge – don’t believe a word that Plumber tells you, he wasn’t one of our mob, not after so many of the lads lost their dosh in his Galileo float.
We don’t forget.
Looking back at our best night of the year, that special place in my liver goes to the Freddie Flintoff benefit dinner in London, where we joined my favourite racing tipster Paul Beck, otherwise known as Freddie’s Best Mate (TM). “Would you like a bottle of anything from our wine list?” asked the waiter. “No, but four Smirnoff will do nicely,” I said.
These charity auctions are a laugh.
Seeing if you can get some tool who takes himself too seriously to keep bidding when he really can’t afford it.
Just because he promised his kids he’d get them a signed England shirt.
Sorry son, but if you want to mess with the big boys you’ve got to learn to piss in the tall grass.
You can knock a lad for stuff like that but at the end of the day it’s all about doing it for sick kiddies.
The boot of my Bentley’s now got more signed Phil Neville shirts and Freddie Flintoff bats than you can shake an autographed hockey stick at. There wasn’t much room for Ian “Beefy” Botham when we bundled him into the back after the Old Trafford test.But that’s another story. Be lucky, and see you for a sherbet or two this Christmas

I love the smell of bacon in the morning.

2007-02-16T07:45:00.001-08:00

It smells like… Virgin Trains first class breakfasts on the 06.55 from Stockport station; it’s THE place to meet the men that matter in Manchester. I was in first class (obviously) and was on the way to the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in London.
I’d won the northern one already and, to be honest, it was a chance to see some of the hedge fund boys I know down there.
Good lads.
Stuffed if I can understand how they do it, but a 20 per cent yield is my kind of yield. I can’t be bothered with a lot of these awards dos; I just want to get on with scraping a living, like you do.
I only do enter them for the sake of the team.
It’s nothing to do with my ego.
But when you see some of these other muppets winning this and that and your team look to you to lead them, well, it’s letting the side down if you don’t.
And I am a leader of men.
It’s what I was put on this planet to do.
I’d followed some other top lads onto that stage as well, I can tell you.
Just look at who’s been up for this title in the past: Shaid Luqman of Lexi, Peter Bradley of Alta Gas, the iSoft boys; they’re all top geezers at the end of the day.
They get a bit of stick for the odd disqualification, investigation, or insolvency, but that’s the trouble with this country.
Always knocking down the successful.
Anyway, when Insider hinted that they wanted a column full of stories about my rich and successful friends I moved quicker than Danny Hall’s sprint to the stage to get his hands on the Insider’s Deal of the Year Award.
I enjoyed that do.
Went with the lads from Ford Campbell, I think.
The missus wasn’t best pleased as it clashed with the opening night of Goldplated on Channel 4.
She spent the night hiding behind the sofa (£14,000 from Arighi Bianchi, as it happens) and she’s had some stick from her mates that it’s about her and me and our chums.
As if.
Most of my mates are just down-to-earth ordinary blokes I went to school with.
Butchers, plasterers, van drivers, the highest-paid partner at Goldman Sachs, the chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide, the founder of Capital Bank.
There I go again, name drops keep falling... So, here’s a story for you.
I last saw Tim Knowles on the train back from London.
He owns that Botany Bay building next to the M61.
I’ve known him for years and he’s a good lad.
I told Tim ages ago that all that flying around in helicopters wasn’t a good idea.
They can break down, just like a car.
But while Stratstone can at least squeeze you into a C-Class for a week or two, if the SLR needs a tune, how does a top entrepreneur get hold of a pool chopper? You can’t.
So where does that leave you? Taking the train.That’s what.