Catering services have reported that the demand for office Christmas parties has declined, as businesses want to avoid the risk of spreading Covid to staff. On the other hand, companies which have decided to host a traditional Christmas celebration have implemented safety measures to reduce the risk of contracting Covid, such as requiring attendees to show a negative PCR test. The Times has the story.
The Times approached every company in the FTSE 100 to ask whether they were organising an office Christmas party this year. Of those that responded there was an even split between cancelling and proceeding, although most of those that were going ahead said they would be hosting multiple smaller events rather than one big party.
Evraz, the mining group, said that it was cancelling festivities in order to “keep our people safe”. Anglo American, another mining group, and IAG, which owns British Airways, chose to cancel.
Experian, the credit reference agency, said that it was not having one big staff party but that employees would be offered “smaller group get-togethers” if they felt comfortable doing so.
Aviva, the insurance company, said that it was going ahead. A spokesman said: “we want everyone at Aviva to have the chance to celebrate the festive period with their colleagues. This will be a mix of events at our offices and at other locations. We are encouraging all colleagues to do everything they can to reduce the risk of the virus spreading, including taking a lateral flow test before and after the event and following external venues’ Covid measures.”
Hospitality businesses that rely on the Christmas season fear they will struggle this year. Philip Inzani, who owns the Polo Bar near Liverpool Street in the City of London, said that Christmas party bookings were down 30% on a normal year and that the bookings he had taken were for smaller groups on average.
“We’re finding that there are inquiries but for a lot less people. So where we would have had an inquiry for 30 people previously, we’re now finding that it’s 10 people or something like that”, he said. “One issue is that a lot of staff are flexi-working so fewer are in central London offices, and of course some people are still nervous about gatherings because of Covid”.
Inzani, 50, also offers catering for office-based Christmas parties but demand for that has slumped even further. He said: “We’d probably end up doing about 15 to 20 events throughout the pre-Christmas period normally. But so far this year we’ve just got two inquiries.”
Worth reading in full.
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Calm yourself, Joanna.
There were once buildings with Italianate facades in Mogadishu, shops selling Westernised fashions in Kabul, elegant French culture in Beirut, and popular nightlife on the coasts of Gaza.
At Ramsgate, there are the architectural remnants of a garden that was donated by a titled lady to the town in 1923. The rusty art deco railings and the fish pond crudely filled in with concrete long ago are as alien to 2024 as are the Greek ruins on Sicily.
As Tolkien put it, so do all feel this way you do who live to see such times, but all one has to do is to decide what to do with the time that is given to you. There is something of privilege to be assigned the role of witness to the last days of greatness. Like accompanying a beloved elderly aunt in her final years of decline and then solemnly walking behind her coffin at her funeral.
Madeleine Bunting’s book, The Seaside, England’s Love Affair, is the ideal beach companion for your next holiday.
We have been going through another of those destructive periods like we had in the 1960s and 1970s. Politicians become embarassed by our past, their friends ar RIBA and among developers tell them and they are keen to hear that these buildings are out of date and cannot be economically maintained. Best to demolish and replace with a concrete and glass box, maybe mishaped to show edginess.
These same politicians and RIBA officers and developer directors love going to Tuscany or any other non-British place you might like to mention and whe nthere they enjoy the repaired old buildings and mutter about the pathetic nature of Britain that we can’t keep our country as well as they do.
The link to the Swansea Labour Party item in the article was interesting. However, the idea of using some of the power from the putative Swansea Lagoon tidal generation setup to make hydrogen as a fuel for a ship is, err, selective with the truth. They’d be better off feeding the whole output into the National Grid from an environmental perspective. Financially, it might make sense to manufacture hydrogen to sell on as a fuel, rather than having to flog the generation output at whatever price is available at high tide, though. Money and environmentalism are not necessarily good bed fellows.
Incidentally, that lagoon project, it’s mate around Cardiff, and the big daddy one, the Severn Barrage, do not attract much coverage in the “press” at present.
Years ago, I actually crossed the Bristol Channel from Mumbles Pier to Ilfracombe, on the old “Balmoral” – which has been restored quite recently. https://www.thebalmoral.org.uk/specification/ Travelled back to Swansea via a bus to Barnstaple then train via Exeter, Bristol, Cardiff.
An excellent article and very thought provoking.
Although seeing the words “Angela rayner” and “beauty” in the same sentence did rather jar.
This article reminds me of the letters written by a wealthy provincial official of the ancient Roman Empire, who was still hoping his son would have a glittering career in the Roman Senate, even as the barbarians were battering down the gates of Rome.
After all, why worry about Muslim Gangs brandishing machetes, disembowelling knives, battering poles and even samurai swords, rampaging through English towns and cities now, when their primary victims are only execrable peasants? You know the sort, don’t you, Joanna? The “vile & feckless” white working class, now being eagerly rounded up with Stalinist alacrity, while smirking Muslims look on with approval.
It is often better to inject humour into a tale of woe as it can often be more effective, and you did that here with your article. Where I live all of these old elegant buildings are “listed”. This must make councils feel good about themselves that they have protected from being knocked down. But in actual fact they are all boarded up and left to disintegrate and are a total eyesore.
It costs a lot of money to restore a listed building. The cost is amplified because VAT is charged on the work, while new builds are zero rated. VAT exemption was removed a few years back. Restoring it would incentivise restoration.
“where we have holidayed for the past seven years” – that’s a looooong holiday
Here in Exmouth, Devon we have a stunning coastline with a three mile beach when the tide is out. The seafront is covered in Victorian architecture as is the town. Recently some gentlemen bought one of the Victorian hotels in a Victorian crescent on the seafront, and rebranded it a best western. Not too long after these gentlemen, took ownership, the were awarded a contract to house illegal immigrants. These people became our new neighbours. Not a word of consultation with Devon county council, nor our town council, or the people who live here and pay property tax. This is when I knew it did not matter what we thought, the gov’t would do as they liked.