League Division 1 ...

A long time ago, before (in order) lockdown, Brexit, football score notifications, Britain's Got Talent, smart phones, Vladimir Putin and even the emergence of grunge. Before even the time when car phones were the same size as a family steak and kidney pie, the pining absentee crowds of the UK received football scores from a man called James Alexander Gordon, initially on "Radio 2 from the BBC" and latterly on Radio 5 Live. His voice would modulate consistently and you could often guess how your team had fared before he read out their part of the score. If he said "Arsenal 2 ..." and his voice lowered on the '2', there was a very good chance your team had scored more than two at what was then Highbury and so achieved a great away win.

Anyway, before even Mr Alexander Gordon we football fans would receive score updates standing outside Radio Rentals in freezing horizontal rain or as a ticker tape flash at the bottom of the screen whilst marvelling at wrestling or some dodgy horse race at Epsom, whilst awaiting the teleprinter scores on BBC 1 just before 5.00pm. Many of you have moved on already and are no longer reading this, as how can a non-digital world have any relevance to your modern lives? You're right, of course, but I am making a point here. But the teleprinter was an invention of pure genius; its little pre-cursor, as it the typewriter head was, quite literally, before the cursor on a computer was even conceived, would hover over a blank screen and we Norwich fans would hold our cumulative breath as it would type ... Liverpool 7 ...  ... ... ... ... ... (WHAT??) Norwich City 1. Yes! We scored at Anfield! 

Well, we thought we would resurrect the scoreboard experience for you and do so with industry news. The business news came in over the weekend thick and fast and in the NTI newsroom we wanted to take you back in time to the days when you had to have a little patience (thank you for the inspiration Mr Barlow) before your appetite was sated. A bit like this ...

Byron Burger 2 (Notices of Intention to appoint Administrators ... now looking down the barrel of a pre-pack with KPMG maybe having found a buyer for some of its restaurants) Burger King 1 (in 10 of its 530 sites around the UK are going to close).

See what we are doing here?

Ted Baker 0 (chance of getting its remuneration policy of boosting executive salaries and bonuses past its investors) Talk Talk 510,000 (being - in pounds Sterling - the bonus that Chief Executive Tristia Harrison voted herself). And TRISTIA? Really?!

Virgin Atlantic 1bn (pounds) rescue deal (as previously reported by the NTI newsroom more than two weeks ago), with the American hedge fund Davidson Kempner Capital stumping up £200m and even the charismatic (his words) Mr Branson sticking his hand in his pocket and raising another £200m (SNAP! - oh, wrong game) ...United Airlines 36,000 (notices to that number of employees warning that their jobs are at risk when federal support for the aviation industry stops in the States). The list includes 2,250 pilots, and presumably more than 33,000 NON-pilots who also have homes with hungry mouths.

BooHoo dumped (by one of its biggest shareholders, after criticisms of the alleged poor working conditions of its workers manning the supply chain)  ... mobile games on phones 100bn (the format soaring and set to hit $100bn this year as locked-down masses flocked to casual gaming).

Richi Sunak 007, Boris 0 in that mask (and that hair. Have you been to the barbers or not BJ?).