The dastardly Mr Deedles

Blackstone vice- chairman John Studzinski’s is responsible for the British Museum’s current ‘Living With Gods’ exhibition, after putting up £400,000 as the show’s sole backer. An extraordinarily generous gesture, but then unmarried ‘Studs’, 61, who earned £13m a year during his HSBC heyday, is a curiously devout soul. Made a Papal Knight by Pope John Paul II, his £20m Chelsea mansion contains a chapel for daily prayer and meditation. Finsbury chairman Roland Rudd, who spins for some of the City’s leading firms, has been made a trustee of the Tate galleries after his appointment was rubber-stamped by Theresa May on Friday. Of course what wily Roland, 56, would really love now is for the PM to consider his much-craved knighthood, though sources say her approval is less likely to be forthcoming. The Hong Kong and Shanghai hotel group’s plans to develop a £500m Peninsula Hotel on Hyde Park Corner will come at the expense of the late Lord Hanson’s former headquarters overlooking Buckingham Palace. The raffish industrialist, who was engaged to Audrey Hepburn, was a stickler for office tidiness, which extended to his staff. As well as insisting on a ‘clear desk’ policy, he also employed a full-time trichologist to check workers for dandruff. Post Office chairman Tim Parker, 62, who moonlights as head of the National Trust, refuted allegations on Andrew Marr’s show that the NT had become too politically correct after volunteers were forced to wear gay pride badges. He insisted the organisation was simply a ‘broad church’. Just as he said that, he then pledged to protect ‘English heritage’, thus alienating the rest of the UK. It was bad enough the poodle-permed booby was wearing brown shoes. News that scandal-hit oil firm Petrofac is assembling a crack team of advisers to fend off any hostile takeovers after a slump in share price puzzles some shareholders. One observes drily: ‘Petrofac fighting off a takeover bid would be like me fighting off an advance from Charlize Theron.’ Have you any gossip for our City diary? Email: mrdeedes@dailymail.co.uk