Time warp with beef wellington

Wonderful company but pitiful speeches at the Institute of Directors annual dinner at the Europa Hotel last night.

I was a guest of former Lord Mayor Cllr Tom Ekin, the Alliance Party representative with roots in South Africa ("I love Africa," he confided last night though he hasn't had an opportunity to return for four years now.) who runs the excellent Weavers Court business park — arguably the best business address in Belfast.

I have always held Tom in high regard since he rushed back from Áras an Uachtaráin on the night of the Aisling Awards in November 2004 to ensure he could welcome our guest speaker the Rev Jesse Jackson in person on behalf of the people of Belfast.

Joining him were his tenants, including serial entrepreneur Bryan Keating and Steve Brankin of Asidua, who are among our most revered business leaders.

However, the speeches didn't match the calibre of the company. You would have sworn we were in Finchley. IoD Chairman Joanne Stuart wasn't entirely blameless but the speech by a Tory Party wannabe, who shamelessly turned the event into a party political broadcast for new Conservative-UUP alliance, was truly awful. This was pre-Good Friday Agreement stuff, pre-1969 and the start of the civil rights movement, if truth be told. No acknowledgement of the island of Ireland never mind the powersharing government in the North or the all-island bodies.

And to round it off, we had British comedian Alan Cleary who clearly had no idea whether he was in Blackpool, Burnley or Belfast — all he knew was that it was one of those British stopovers. Admittedly, I missed some of the punchlines since they predicated a knowledge of British B-list celebs and backbench MPs but when the jokes started with, "I read this morning in the Daily Mail" you just knew this was a night of cultural cringe by the pravince.

Bring back last year's guest speaker (albeit staunch ally of unionism) Gavin O'Reilly. Never thought I'd say that.