Business Diary: June 21

Thanks to a Harrogate-based firm – Usefulstudents.com – more students are picking up the skills they need to find a job after they graduate. The site was founded by brothers, Mike and Andrew Howes, who identified a gap in the student recruitment market while in higher education. They struggled to find part, or full-time, jobs to fit into their timetables. Not all these jobs are pure drudgery. The site has come up with a list of top 10 fun jobs which are available for students this summer and, Diary is told, “meet the employability skills criteria by promoting customer awareness, team working and self management”. Top of the list, is the job of “Puppy Sitter” which sounds like any dog-lover’s dream role. At number two is “Bouncy Castle Attendant”, a job which will surely help you to sharpen up your knowledge of health and safety. More conventional tasks, such as “Music Festival Steward” are also on the list, but Diary was particularly taken with the following job description: “Working at a quadrathon event, with a variety of tasks, such as helping people in and out of kayaks and selling fish and chips...” Now there’s a role which will really help you to understand the virtues of multi-tasking. Wicketkeeper misses life on the road RUNNING your own business is often all about the buzz of providing a good service and making money, but there are some things it cannot provide. Richard Blakey, the former Yorkshire wicketkeeper and County Championship title winner, knows this better than most. He set up his sports and events management firm 20 years ago when he had time on his hands in the close season. Today it is a growing and expanding into new areas including darts and comedy, but it is a far cry from life on the road with the Tykes. “To spend 20 years going around the country with 15 mates having a good time (then) you are going to miss that type of camaraderie... the good humour and the banter you can imagine around the dressing room,” he told Diary. There are many upsides, however, and not just from making new contacts and putting on successful events – it is a chance to give his body something of a break. “With the wicketkeeping and bending down, the old back aches, but I keep myself going and keep fit and keep training.” Boss admits Royal wedding blunder Supermarket bosses aren’t renowned for their ability to take the rap when they get it wrong, so it was refreshing to hear Sainsbury’s chief executive Justin King acknowledge his fallibility. At the group’s first quarter press conference he said that April’s Royal Wedding had proved a bumper period for Sainsbury’s with massive sales of champagne, bunting, flags and mugs. At this point one journalist pointed out that Mr King had actually said earlier this year that the Royal Wedding wouldn’t be a buying opportunity. “Ah yes,” he replied. “But fortunately my buying teams completely ignored me so we had a very good Royal Wedding.” If only all bosses were so happy to be ignored... Solar power and luminaries of cricket Cricket fans could be left confused following the recent launch of energy company Solar Capital. The Doncaster-based firm, which is fitting solar panels to houses in Hull, has a director called Angus Fraser, while the partner at Leeds-based Ethos Corporate Finance, which raised funding for Solar Capital, is Chris Silverwood. Yet this is not the Angus Fraser who played 46 Test matches for England, taking 177 wickets. Nor is it the Chris Silverwood who turned out in six Tests for England and played more than 180 first-class matches for Yorkshire and Middlesex. However, the two firms will no doubt be hoping for a run of long, sunny days to maximise the return on their investment. Cricketers Fraser and Silverwood, meanwhile, generally performed better under a bit of cloud cover.