Pudgy hedge funder Crispin Odey remains bearish about the British economy, insisting too many of us are starting to borrow money we can’t pay back. He cites Adolf Hitler’s armaments minister Fritz Todt, who predicted the German war effort would stall in R

Polished City spinner and Brunswick founder Sir Alan Parker, 60, is losing two of his senior lieutenants, Mike Harrison and Mike Smith. Harrison is off to write crime thrillers, while Smith plans to resume learning the piano. It is said that numerous talented practitioners have previously quit Brunswick, frustrated at Parker’s unwillingness to relinquish control of his company. Some harshly compare him to Colonel Tom Parker, Elvis’s famously controlling manager who wouldn’t release the King from his contract even after he died.

Have you noticed how there are no new photos of Fred Goodwin since his public disgrace over Royal Bank of Scotland? The last known picture was taken in 2009. The go-to snap remains the one of Fred dressed like a country squire with shotgun broken over one arm, a penny-loafered hoof resting triumphantly on a hay bale like a Roman Praefectus. Photographer Lesley Donald predicts the picture’s copyright fees will keep him in silk stockings well into his dotage.

Plummy Dixons Carphone boss Seb James, 51, is excited about the firm’s new store in Copenhagen called Elgiganten. He says: ‘Anyone visiting Copenhagen on their travels really shouldn’t miss seeing it.’ If he says so. The James family holidays must be a riot.

Brainbox ex- GlaxoSmithKline chairman Sir Richard Sykes, 74, met with Prince Andrew on Wednesday in his capacity as chairman of The Royal Institution. According to Court and Social, Andrew ‘later held a meeting about driverless cars’. Do cerebral business dignitaries find these intimate pow-wows with His Highness helpful, I wonder?