DIARY: Those of you who remember Geof Pearson, who retired last year as manager and secretary of the £3.8bn (€5.5bn) Sainsbury pension fund after 18 years, might be interested to know he has just released his first CD, called Newton's Blues.

Pearson, or One ‘F' Geof as he's affectionately known to the pensions world, has recorded more than 400 of his own compositions on 60 albums to date.

But he was finally able to record this CD after winning a £260,000 Coca-Cola ‘Buy a Player' football competition last year, which saw him help his favoured football team Hull City through a £250,000 contribution to the club, leaving him the £10k to pursue his other passion for singing.

Pearson said in his earlier Exit Interview with IPE: "It turned out much better than anybody has got the right to expect given that I am singing on it - it's amazing what you can do with auto-tuning nowadays. Having said that, I have no expectations of any success for the CD, which hopefully immunises me from disappointment, disillusion and discontent." (See earlier IPE article: From football to the Karma Sutra)

On release of his latest offering, he added: "I appreciate that it is going to be extremely difficult to make any sort of impact in the music business starting at my age (57) but you can't win if you don't buy a ticket. I've proved myself lucky enough to win the Coca-Cola promotion so you never know."

Two songs have been pre-released in digital form and are now available on iTunes, or can be accessed through Pearson's website at www.geofpearson.com.

The first song, Sunset Rider, is already said to have topped listener's charts on the internet, while proceeds from his second song, The Electric Zoo, are going towards the 21st Century Tiger charity supported by Hull City Football Club.

It would be unfair to argue pensions professional are single-minded as it's not the first excitement Pearson is likely to have experienced.

Even during his years in pensions, he was also a UK Premier League/Football League referee and represented England on FIFA's international panel for two years and officiated at Wembley Stadium four times, including a match between Manchester United v Liverpool, but his football career highlight was officiating Real Madrid at the Bernabau.

Having fulfilled another ambition, he is now working on writing a "modern Karma Sutra" love story, which will feature illustrations by his wife.

IPE wonders whether APG now has Pearson's back catalogue in its sights as a potential investment to add to its collected music rights portfolio.

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