Jim Davis congratulated International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) secretary-general David Cockroft on his culinary skills and hard work in the kitchen as the union man played generous host to the latest meeting of the International Maritime Industries Forum (IMIF) in London.

It was, of course, one of IMIF head Davis’s trademark tongue-in-cheek gags. Cockroft had been far too busy greeting the great and good from the world of commerce to turn his hand in the kitchen at the ITF’s Borough Road headquarters.