Billy has refashioned his 'substances advent calendar' (an upper on an 'even day' and a downer on an 'odd') to count the days to the publication of Sue Gray's report on alleged lockdown rule-breaking in Downing Street. Well, we say 'alleged'. Seeing the bumbling blonde bungler falter and splutter during PMQs and in front of even the most mild interviewers on childrens' TV has become Britain's fastest-growing sport and the end of this week promises to be a corker, not least because Ms Gray has been spotted chatting to Scotland Yard.
Are we going to miss Boris, or not? Will we ever find out? Speculators about the prime minister's future join those who are advocates of the BBC's 'The Tourist', and who have not given in and binge-watched Jamie Dornan's materpiece; sometimes suspense is just too much. Sterling has already given its verdict on our glorious prime minister's situation and fate. It doesn't care. It has been on a steady rally since December and, although it can be blipped by inflationary numbers and Bank of England announcements, it is blasé about Boris and his bleak future.
The suspense is over for more than 4,000 holidaymakers, as Truly Holdings, owner of Teletext Holidays and Alpharooms; Truly honestly entered into a Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation last month, with our old mates Robert Cundy and Bijal Shah of Edge Recovery and Insolvency Practitioners being appointed to work out how any company with the word 'Teletext' in its name managed to last beyond the early 90s.
The Competition and Markets Authority reported that the business paid more than £7million owed to package holiday customers, but claims more customers are still waiting for their money back. A spokesperson from Teletext Holidays separately told a newspaper barely worthy of the accolade that the amount refunded stands at £10.8million, but it still owes £1.2milion towards historic and ongoing cancellations.
Similar less than salubrious activity down the road at Arena Television has been uncovered by the shamed broadcaster's Administrator, Kroll, who tell us that the group had secured more than £290million against the supposed assets but it “does not hold the vast majority of assets” purportedly borrowed against. Meanwhile, the Serious Fraud Office is quoted as saying "it could neither confirm no deny" that they are opening an investigation into the group, which is SFO code for ... "we are, but cannot say we are".
Stephen Fitzpatrick, CEO of OVO Energy, refused to comment about Patrick's view of the situation, but did admit the energy company was cutting hundreds of jobs at the Perth-based beleaguered company and, wearing a very suspicious pair of brown shoes with terrible jeans, looked a bit sheepish about the £40 million worth of demands of loans and cash transfers his company is facing.
Ovo Energy was given £17million in furlough payments after taking over Perth-based SSE’s retail division in January 2020. You remember Stephen, he's the geezer made famous a couple of weeks ago for suggesting people spoon their pets and “do star jumps” to keep warm as bills soar. He is now upgrading his popularity by making 1700 staff redundant at OVO and that should do his chances of "Terrible Man of the Year" no harm.
We suspect that Stephen is not having a ... Happy Sunday.
