Good news for the owners of Little Italy in London’s Soho, get the bunting out, your biggest customer is on his way back. That’s right folks, the irrepressible Stuart Archibald, the man who single-handedly paid for that extension out at the back, has decided to jack in life in New York and return to these shores.
It’s also good news for the bars of Sydney, where Stu plans to spend at least six months of the year. In fact the only person who won’t be jumping for joy is Mrs Idol. She still hasn’t forgiven me for the time I first went to lunch with Stu back in the late Nineties and got home just after Christmas in 2003…
Mind you, maybe he’s changed these days and gone all sensible. Allegedly he even has a girlfriend, mind you not that he has ever heeded the advice of the fairer sex. Even back in 1988, when Lintas Sydney managing director Julia King was recruiting for the Australian agency’s direct start-up, young Archibald – fresh out of art college – was told: “You don’t want to go into direct marketing. You want to get yourself a proper job.” Even though the rest, as they say, is history.
Talking of history, I was in the City of London yesterday when out of the corner of my eye I spotted a rather forlorn figure, slumped outside City Thameslink station. And then I realised it was Mr Personality himself, the one and only trade body guru James Kelly.
For those of you who wondered whatever happened to the DMA’s former managing director I can confirm he’s got a full-time job and everything. These days he’s heading up the trade body for the security industry.
According to the blurb, the British Security Industry Association is the trade association for the professional security industry in the UK. Its members provide over 70% of UK security products and services and adhere to strict quality standards.
They are also built like brick shit houses and look scary as hell. Quite how Mr Kelly fits in there though is anyone’s guess…
“Young Archibald”? Isn’t that an oxymoron?