EMI falling apart in public

More previews of the EMI downsizing announcements for tomorrow - if they could get the papers interested in their acts they way they're interested in Hands' cuts, they'd be in clover.

The job losses - or "tightening of support", as it's being euphemistically described - are going to be announced through that modern tool of corporate cowardice, the video link:

The changes will be announced to staff tomorrow by video link from the Odeon Cinema in Kensington, West London. Artists and their managers have also been invited to participate as Mr Hands tries to reassure them over the impact of the changes.

Don't you wish you worked for a company in such financial difficulties it hires a cinema in central London in order to prevent staff and management being in the same room?

Besides sacking nearly everybody, there's to be a new broom, too. Yet another new broom:

The restructuring of back-office functions will be handled by Mike Clasper, the former chief executive of BAA, the airports operator.

Clasper has experience of the entertainment industry - he's a non-executive director of ITV as well. BAA, EMI, ITV - it's like he's trying to collect faded three-letter British brands, isn't it?

Of course, the one piece of light relief in all this is the huffing and puffing - more puffing than anything - of Robbie William's arthritic career. The one thing EMI isn't bothered about is the 'strike':

Mr Hands is said to be “pretty relaxed” over Williams’s threat to withhold his album, preferring to focus on more profitable artists such as Norah Jones.

... and letting newspapers know about it.