Trading gossip

Feb 13 2008 by Tony McDonough, Liverpool Daily Post

* LIVERPOOL’S Malmaison hotel marked its first birthday last week in a celebration that was a little more low key than its launch party last year, when the local liggers drank the place dry.

Invited guests enjoyed generous hospitality once again, and the city of Liverpool was thanked for “taking the Malmaison to its hearts”. Sweet.

However, not everything went to plan. A talented pastry chef at the hotel, who wishes only to be known as Ben, was up until 2am on the eve of the party preparing a special iced sponge cake in the shape of the building and with a number one on it.

Unfortunately, his grand creation was left in a rather “precarious” position in the kitchen, and in the hustle and bustle fell face down on the floor.

A source told Trading Gossip: “Poor Ben is currently in therapy recovering, but will put his head above the parapet next week when he proudly displays a replacement cake.”

* LIVERPOOL’S biggest-ever delegation heads off to the MIPIM international property festival in glamorous Cannes next month.

A record 26 private sector representatives will travel to the Cote D’Azur for several days of, er, hard graft and Champagne guzzling.

Trading Gossip recalls one year when the guide book helpfully published telephone numbers and prices for the local ladies of the night. Scandalous.

Pity then those property market professionals from Liverpool who haven’t got a place on the charabanc.

They will have to content themselves with the fourth annual “Liverpool Cannes Do” lunch, being held this year at Rumford’s 20 Chapel Street development and organised by Chris Connor, above, and friends at the Merseyside Property Forum.

We understand tickets for the event sold out within four hours, with profits going to the charity, Property Aid.

* WE ARE very grateful to the Bank of Ireland, which has a major base in Liverpool, for inviting us to their St Patrick’s Day celebration in London.

The event is being held on March 12, and we hope it’s not churlish of us to point out that St Patrick’s Day is actually on March 17. Well, you’d think they’d know.