People & Business

Sky staff have received an unexpected Christmas e-mail from the company concerning the recent decision by Telewest, the cable operator, to drop Sky's History Channel from its line-up. It is being replaced with a number of other channels, including the new BBC channels, "none of which offer a service dedicated to historical programming, or provide the educational value that The History Channel does", says the memo.

Sky continues: "It is important that all Sky staff who subscribe to Telewest call their local Telewest operator and demand that The History Channel be retained on their service. "Please also encourage any friends/family whom you know to be Telewest customers to do the same."

The memo then lists 14 Telewest customer service phone numbers, and concludes: "Please delete after noting down the relevant numbers. Thank you."

Poor old Denis Cassidy. The chairman of Liberty was already facing rebellion yesterday by the Stewart-Liberty family at the London store's egm. Mr Cassidy also had to deal with some highly eccentric questioning from the floor.

As soon as Mr Cassidy asked for questions from the couple of hundred Liberty shareholders gathered at the Institute of Actuaries in Holborn, a white-haired man in the second row popped up and mumbled something incomprehensible.

Mr Cassidy said he couldn't understand the question, at which the shareholder raised his voice: "Are the board a deficient number, an excessive number or a perfect number?"

A visibly nonplussed Mr Cassidy gamely replied: "There is no answer I can give you but that the number of directors is five."

To which our mystery shareholder declared: "If you divide by three and you get two, then you get 28. These are infinite numbers that are the rule of the universe." A bemused meeting then moved on to other matters, until the numerologist felt the need to comment upon the finance director Andrew Garety's claim that while the company was investing heavily "conversely they would get a good return on it".

The White-haired One said: "Mr Garety referred to converse but it is inverse, reverse, converse, perverse, as I am." Cosmic stuff.

A colleague assures me this is a direct quote from a song called "Murder Mystery" by Velvet Underground, which appeared on the heavily drug-influenced New York band's 1969 album Candy Says. What any of this has to do with the future of Liberty is unclear.

Apologies for the following tasteless jokes currently doing the rounds of the City wine bars: What does UBS stand for? You've been sacked. How about SBC? Sacked before Christmas. A heartless place, the Square Mile.

Church & Co, the posh men's shoe company based in Northampton, said yesterday that John Church is stepping aside as joint managing director next year, but will remain executive chairman.

Iain Kennedy, who became joint managing director with John Church when the previous chairman, Ian Church, retired six years ago, will take the new role of chief executive.

John Church is the fourth generation of Church's to run the company since it was founded in 1873. "We were intending to split the roles. I'm 61 now, but I'm not in the market for retiring. I still intend to work - that's what `executive' means," he tells me.

Church's shoes are a virtual part of the City's work uniform, being too expensive for most mere mortals but not as wallet-damaging as getting your shoes individually made for you.

John Church agrees that "our shopper is very much a City man". He also says that while the family connection is useful in marketing terms, especially in the Far East, "we're not in the nepotism game".

There are 1,750 employees in the company, he says, three of which are Church's; himself, his son and a younger cousin.

Both the younger ones have done something else before joining the company, he adds. "Usually we don't let Churches near the company until their late 20s. There are no free meals or sinecures for Churches," he concludes.

Granada has appointed a former president of Hertz International to run its Forte Hotels division. Antoine Cau will join the hotels operation as chief executive in January, having worked for the hire-car company in France, Italy and the UK.

Mr Cau says: "There are many similarities between Forte and the customer- focused businesses I have led in my career to date."