Poster boys get a good pasting

The poster industry knows how to enjoy itself and last week’s More Group bash was no exception. Group chief executive Roger Parry and managing director of the bus shelter business Peter Smyth invited hundreds of guests to a Texas-themed bar in Trafalgar Square to celebrate the company’s takeover by Texan communications giant Clear Channel.

JC Decaux, the More Group’s French arch-rival, which launched an unsuccessful counterbid for the group, tried to muscle in and sent a low-loader lorry bearing posters of a Texan cow roasting over a spit. Unfortunately the police took a dim view and moved it on.

Meanwhile, company management and media types rubbed shoulders with more than 300 bill-posters who had come to London in special buses. Reports say there was a bit of a fray on the way back to the coaches.

It seems the paste-up men ended up trying to paste each other.