It will be noted from previous posts that both Hollywood Monster and Love Brum were, coincidentally, recipients of large amounts of taxpayers' cash courtesy of a Government scheme administered by The Birmingham Post. Mr Andrews scored for Hollywood Monster and then went back for more in the second round of funding with Love Brum, a posh boys and girls charity and plaything of LinkedIn liggers.
In my long and undistinguished life I have seen the inexorable rise of PR bullshitters taking over the world and one manifestation of this is the new-style "awards" industry. Back in the day, awards were generally given out by trade and professional bodies. Whilst there was the inevitable back-scratching and log-rolling so beloved of the English ruling classes, most of the gongs were decided by a committee of one's peers and had some heft. But Birmingham residents will now be familiar with the sight of assorted men in badly-fitting hired suits and women who seem to have only a passing acquaintance with an iron criss-crossing the City Centre on the way to "awards" ceremonies "created" by people for the sole purpose of making moolah.
Don't get me wrong - I am not like the communistic Jeremy Corbyn despising the profit motive but, as we shall see below, there is one sucker born every minute.....
And I have to hand it out to them - because there are so many mug punters anxious to have their egos stroked - Birmingham Events Limited came up with a clever business model for The Birmingham Food and Drink Awards (the Food Awards). This private, profit-making, company set up these Food Awards with no less than 32 (!) categories ranging from Best Curry House to Best Themed Restaurant and Best Spa. The "Judges" - apart from one category open to the public - then shortlisted at least 5 candidates for each award (thus creating over 160 "nominee companies" to flog their event to). The clever thing was then to give each shortlisted organisation a "free" seat at the awards ceremony at Edgbaston Cricket Ground banking on these morons buying extra tickets for the event at, wait for it, £70 (yes, seventy pounds) a pop!!! And it worked - with these gullible business gurus falling over themselves to attend at significant cost and, worse, some organisations that are quasi-public bodies supposed to be working to improve the city paying for tables with other people's money!
Well you might say - presumably the judging panel were high-powered figures within the industry so that their imprimatur was of worth? Alas the panel of 8 contained four local food "bloggers", one PR person, the two people who run Birmingham Events Limited itself and our old friend, the ubiquitous Tim Andrews of Hollywood Monster/Love Brum. Quite how serious food organisations, top chefs etc could feel that getting a quick blow-job from that lot was worth £70 a head is beyond me although we shall have to see what happens if this "event" is repeated next year as there have been grumblings of discontent with a number of attendees telling The Crow that the food was quite nice but that they considered the whole thing a "rip-off".
Of course, no posh party is now complete without the thrusting young bourgeois professionals of Love Brum being in attendance and they were the event's "charity partner". One of their trustees had another organisation he is involved with (which is supposed to be working for Brum's business community) pay for a large table for a nice boozy jolly - which was handy. The "charity" also had "ambassadors" on each table and one pub-manager told me the whole event was ruined for him by this person spending the ENTIRE evening hassling him to put £25 in an envelope!
Happily some organisations regularly promoted by the charity found themselves shortlisted for awards but that was, no doubt, entirely coincidental and I am sure Mr Andrews excused himself from the panel when Love Brum favourite organisations came to be considered.
So who were the people who so successfully shafted the mugs of the Birmingham hospitality industry - sorry, created out of thin air very prestigious [sic] gongs for the hard-working vendors of quality products? The current sole director of Birmingham Events Limited is one Ifraz Ahmed.
A word of caution here as some of the following details come from commercial company search sites are they are not always completely accurate. But these sites appear to show Ifraz Ahmed as having been connected, via a different address from his current one, to a large number of dissolved companies. One, "Daves Dip Limited" appears "odd" and may be a rogue search result but then there are these dissolved companies - Birmingham Telecommunications Limited, Citi-Telecom Limited, Direct Telecom Solutions Limited, First Direct Telecom Limited, International Direct Telecom (UK) Limited, Made 2 Talk Limited and Point of Call Limited.
Records show a co-director at Birmingham Telecommunications Ltd and Citi-Telecom Limited called Sajida Noreen who is also shown as residing at the same B9 address as friend Ifraz. According to the commercial search sites he was also involved with two other dissolved companies, Vanitel Limited and Made 2 Win Limited.
The main Companies House site shows that Ifraz resigned from two other now defunct companies, 04243322 and 04449323 but, much more significantly, was also a director of Direct Mobile Networks Limited which was finally dissolved in 2013 after compulsory liquidation!
There is an old business adage taught to me by someone in the Jewellery Quarter - if you are going to shake someone's hand in business then know whose hand you are shaking!
Ifraz boasts of being the chauffeur to one Anita Chumber who styles herself as the Co-Editor of "The Asian Today" and who was the contact point for the prats shelling out £70 a head for the Edgbaston beano. There is an oddity concerning her involvement with Birmingham Events Limited in that she set up the Company and was a co-director with Ifraz on 8th February, 2016 but mysteriously resigned the very next day - 9th February, 2016. What was going on there?
So this pair constituted a quarter of the judging panel seemingly knowledgeable enough to decide whether Glyn Purnell's poached duck egg yolk with birch syrup was superior to Brad Carter's Pork Belly with ManjimupTruffle! FFS!!!!!!
Still Ifraz, everyone loves a tryer - apart, usually, for shafted creditors! And he is at it again! The general public of Birmingham are humbly invited to contact Anita Chumber to shell out just £80.24 each for the nonsensical "Birmingham Awards" on 10th September in association with no less than Brum's new masters of the universe, the all-conquering BCU (black tie!) It goes without saying that Hollywood Monster are a sponsor and Love Brum the charity "partner".
As before, there are a large number of categories - 19 this time - to create a "market" of nominees for Anita to flog her tickets too. And so if you want to attend a totally meaningless commercial "awards" event max up the credit card and get booking...... Needless to say there are some familiar nominees and some interesting shortlisted nominees.
Mr Sam Hufton of Ricemedia is on the shortlist of five for what purports to be "Businessman of the Year". One of his partners is P J Ellis a "co-founder" of Love Brum.
In the ludicrous "Excellence in Media Award" are Delicious PR one of whose people was a judge in the Food Awards. Another nominee in this category is Orb Consulting who, curiously, also happened to be a recipient of our, taxpayers', cash via the Birmingham Post and whose Rob Bloxham happens to be a trustee of, er, Love Brum!
Edgbaston, the "venue partner" for the Food Awards now makes it into the "Venue of the Year" Category.....
Do you think this all smacks of the creation of a self-promoting oligarchy by Birmingham's wannabe new "elite" eh Brummies?
(Curiously there is an inane category for "best blogger". Got a feeling I am not going to be in the running "lol".)
Addendum:
A bit more log-rolling.... Love Brum (a charity) - see also Tim Andrews above - have heavily promoted the Hyatt Regency who just happened to also win "Venue of the Year" in last year's Birmingham awards and was "shortlisted" in no less than 3 separate categories in the Food Awards. Another Love Brum corporate sponsor Town and Country Inns had one nomination in the Food Awards.
In another ironic twist Clive Reeves PR is nominated in best PR [sic] category. They claim to act for last year's Birmingham Retailer of the Year in the joke "Birmingham Awards" and are egging on another client, Opus, via social media in the Restaurant of the Year category this year. Pass the sick bag Alice!
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