BUNHILL : The show must go on - from Blackpool to Bangkok

IF YOU THOUGHT Blackpool Pleasure Beach spread no further than the town's limits, think again. Today David Cam, one of the directors of Blackpool Pleasure Beach Ltd, is off with the trade minister, Richard Needham, and 15 other leisure-ish business people to Malaysia. He will be trying to persuade the Malaysians to run one of Blackpool's splendidly over-the-top shows in their shiny new theme parks. All they have to do is say yes, and a spectacular such as Hot Ice will be shipped across wholesale for the delectation of the Malaysian public (who will, however, have to bring their own chip butties).

This is all part of Blackpool's attempt to become the only multinational beach in the world. BPL turns over pounds 40m-plus, and is a model of continuity. It was founded 99 years ago by W G Bean; his daughter, 92-year-old Doris Thompson, still chairs the company. Geoffrey, her son, is managing director, and Amanda - of the next generation - is the show's producer.

This history has given the company a great store of skills and expertise, which it has been flogging hard abroad in recent years. Hot Ice has already spent two seasons in Bangkok, and could be there again next spring.

The company also has 40,000 designs for funfair equipment, going back 100 years. Even though Blackpool has the latest and scariest rides, developing countries prefer simpler devices. So in India any roller-coaster is now called a Zipper Dipper - after the wooden device introduced a few years ago by BPB.

I WANTED to ring the press office of the US embassy, which is a very modern sort of place. I dialled the main number and was answered by a recording listing five different sorts of American I might want to talk to. That took 55 seconds. I was then given five more species, one of which was the press office. That took another minute and five seconds. I pressed the right button, 45 seconds later I was told there was no answer, and I was bounced back to the beginning of the sequence. Finally, four minutes and 26 seconds after I had started, I got through to a human being. Isn't technology marvellous?

Spreading the bang THIS Tuesday, the Americans are celebrating the success of their insurgency some years back. A sad day for United Empire Loyalists and most right- thinking Britons, but not for the jolly staff of Fantastic Fireworks. "We used to get 80 or 90 per cent of our business in the run-up to Guy Fawkes," sales and marketing director Jeremy Finch says. "Now it's more like 50:50."

One reason is that foreigners do not understand the importance of the Gunpowder Plot, and prefer to brighten the skies at other times of year - like the Fourth of July, Swiss Day at the beginning of August and (getting really foreign) Hogmanay.

This Tuesday, the company will put on shows at the USairbases at Lakenheath and Mildenhall, and also for some reason at Keele University and Birmingham Centennial Centre.

Mr Finch says that although back-garden Catherine wheel parties are on the retreat, public shows are booming - and many of them are held in the summer. VE Day was a bonus, because May is usually quiet. But there are still individuals around who want to get rid of their money in the most spectacular way possible. "One man spent pounds 15,000 on a display for 25 people," he says. "It took 12 minutes to go up."

WHO benefited most from Mr Major's announcement that he might no longer be our Great Leader? Shell, of course, which found the spotlight of the Brent Spar-related publicity miraculously taken off it 10 days ago. And which was the only FT-SE 100 company to see its share price rise during last Monday's stock market bloodbath? Shell, of course. A week is a long time in the life of a wicked multinational.

Disappearing act

URI GELLER, the well-known spoon bender, was on hand at Victoria station last week mending watches and clocks as part of a British Telecom stunt to tell the world it was starting to charge by the second rather than the minute.

He would stare hard at the offending watch and chant "One, two, three, go!" In many cases, I am told, the watch obeyed. But his psychic powers let him down in one embarrassing way. BT had a pile of watches to give out as consolation prizes for those he failed to satisfy - and someone half-inched the lot.

Mr Geller did not notice, but the boys in blue did and caught the offender in the act. I am told he is now staring at his cell door chanting "One, two, three, open!"

RESIDENTS of Southampton up with the lark a week or so ago may have spotted 600 computer industry professionals in various states of disarray disem- barking from the P&O liner Canberra after three days of serious business and serious drinking.

This, apparently, is the way to sell computers these days. Potential trade buyers of hardware and software are herded aboard the liner, which steams round and round the Channel until they either cough up or throw up. They are helped along by duty free bars, which open from early morning into the small hours, and it is not uncommon to see breakfasters still wearing their dinner jackets.

Despite reservations about the ratio of business to boozing, the Comdef Computer Dealers Forum has gone from strength to strength.

Trapped on board an ocean liner with several hundred computer sales and marketing professionals may not sound like fun, but those disembarking at Southampton were keen to book their passage for next year's trip. "I wouldn't miss it for the world," said one. "The boozing and partying are fun, but it is also the most useful business event in the calendar."

Wedding list bliss

MRS BUNHILL, who became Mrs Bunhill last week, was dead set against wedding lists. Would she, I wonder, have changed her mind had she known about Marks and Spencer's new interactive touch-screen wedding list system?

Couples can now set up a list in the M&S store in Camberley, Surrey, where the software company AIT is testing out its gizmo. Each guest is given an identification number with the invitation, trots along to Camberley, and punches the number into a computer. The system prints out the list, omitting gifts that have already been bagged, and takes the order.

Ideal for anyone who wants to be given great quantities of Harries Tweed jackets, sensible underclothes and cook-chilled chicken tikka. Probably not ideal for Mrs Bunhill, but then again she's an unimaginative old thing.