Croisette swaps glamour for suits...
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La Croisette, the elegant boulevard
fronting the Mediterranean in Cannes, is awash with suits and
mainly male property types wearing ID cards hanging from a yellow
lanyard.
The tide of suits - such as that modelled by John Prscott,
right - has swept away the normal array of elderly but highly
fashionable ladies accompanied by equally resplendent poodles.
MIPIM is the biggest property, development and regeneration show
on earth. It has been going for 21 years and attracts thousands.
This year's tally is an estimated 18,000 - organisers Reed Midem
are always coy about the precise number because they want to convey
a positive message - a lot more than the Cannes Film Festival.
However, it is not as glamorous as the film fest, with no scantily
clad actresses draped over executive yachts to promote the latest
box office disaster.
But it is a measure of the global financial crisis - not to
mention public sector spending squeeze and sensitivity to potential
media attack on French Beanos on the Rates - that two years ago the
numbers were nearly 30,000.
Champagne quaffing has definitely reduced, although judging by
the hundreds of suits crowded outside the local bars, beer
consumption is soaring.
Kent has been here, but not in the force of previous
times.However, deputy KCC leader Alex King is determined not to
miss out, and stressing his Locate in Kent credentials, rather than
KCC's, he made a splash at a seminar by announcing he is to lead a
mission to MIPIM in 2011.
Venerable King, as he was dubbed by blunt-speaking Jackie Sadek,
his old friend from the Kent Thameside Delivery Board, is a great
fixer and is bound to come up with a few surprises at MIPIM
2011.
Maybe a Royal Navy warship or Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ship
to fly the flag for Kent. And talk is that Michael Heseltine and
John Prescott, those two old warhorses to whom we owe the East
Thames Corridor, later the Thames Gateway, may be invited. The
Hezza and Prezza Show - now that could be well worth seeing.
And if it helps bring more investment and jobs to Kent and
Medway,- capitalising on the buzz of the Olympics a year later -
what better way of spending a few taxpayer euros. As Paul Wookey,
chief executive of Locate in Kent, put it, people should ask
questions if they don't go to MIPIM, not if they do..
Friday, March 19 2010
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