The dastardly Mr. Deedes
Bell Pottinger founder Tim Bell, 75, who advised Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s wife Asma, was interviewed by Newsnight’s Kirsty Wark about his former firm’s expulsion from the public relations trade body on Monday. On three occasions their testy exchange was interrupted by Bell’s phone going off. Who was so keen to get hold of the rakish Svengali? Richemont chairman Johann Rupert, I am told. Not Korean crackpot Kim Jong-un, as one Twitter wag mischievously suggested. Amazon now affixes the word ‘evangelist’ to a number of its job titles. It employs a ‘communications evangelist’, a ‘technical evangelist’ and even a ‘principal evangelist.’ No doubt a wheeze cooked up by the firm’s creepy founder, Jeff Bezos. Like most tech billionaires, he’s said to suffer from an incurable God complex. Nick Wheeler, sleek founder of Charles Tyrwhitt shirts, emails his considerable database to inform them he’ll begin bicycling from John O’Groats to Land’s End this Sunday to raise funds for the Prince’s Trust. Wheeler, 52, who boasts a £427m fortune, generously offers to match any dona- tion, though cautiously caps the total at £100,000 ‘just in case Bill Gates is reading’. In yesterday’s story about Deutsche Bank dispensing with Blackberry handsets in favour of iPhones, I proposed the bank must be the last financial giant still using the outdated handsets. A Canary Wharf-based banker at Citi writes: ‘No they’re not, we’re still lumbered with the bloody things. Can you name and shame us in your column so our bosses finally issue us with something decent?’ Wall Street steakhouse Delmonico’s has introduced a secret ‘Billionaire’s Menu’ aimed at its wealthy clientele. Items include a $100 grilled cheese sandwich, plus a flatbread that’s topped with wagyu beef, lobster, foie gras, black truffle shavings and edible 24-carat gold leaf, costing $150. Will bankers be tempted? Satirist HL Mencken once observed: ‘No-one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.’