Pembroke: Calling it a Day

Well, mirabile dictu. Sir Graham Day, the lifelong workaholic whose non-executive directorships include British Aerospace, Thorn- EMI and Laird Group (as well as a clutch of appointments in his native Canada) is yielding another of his prestigious positions.

He's already announced that he will step down from the helm of Cadbury-Schweppes and, from 5 May, he will no longer be non-executive chairman of PowerGen.

His replacement cannot be described as 'workshy', but may have a little more spare time to devote to PowerGen, where he is already a non-executive director.

Sir Colin Southgate is also chairman of Thorn EMI, a director of the Bank of England and the South Bank board and a member of the President's Committee for the CBI.

Andrew Grant, he of the moguloid public relations outfit Brunswick, was on good form yesterday over the forthcoming flotation of Devro, the sausage-skin maker. He reacted eagerly to speculation that Devro, which should be floated within the next 12 months with a projected market cap of pounds 170m, could easily diversify.

'Well, you can have it as long as you like,' he said of collagen, from which sausage skins are made. 'It's transparent and lengthy, and comes in many different sizes and strengths . . .'

Still, Mr Grant managed to rein himself in sufficiently to add that collagen's edible nature made it unsuitable for contraceptive use. We'll bear it in mind.

Is the world's demand for football as insatiable as it seems? Yes. The independent TV producers Sunset & Vine are making a 13-part series in the run-up to the next World Cup, which you can catch in the US in 1994.

The unique feature of the programmes, which will otherwise include run-of-the-mill match reports and reviews and profiles of footballers and managers, will be interviews with those forgotten superfit hero-villains, referees.

Sunset & Vine launched the concept at this week's MIP-TV jamboree in Cannes.

In just three days 41 countries, including the US, Italy and Brazil, have signed up to buy it. What a nice little earner.