The dastardly Mr Deedes

Molasses-voiced Lloyds boss Antonio Horta Osorio has just taken delivery of a new head of corporate affairs, bearded expublic relations executive Andrew Walton. Top of the spin doctor’s bulging in-tray is the potentially damaging HBOS Reading saga, still the subject of a Financial Conduct Authority investigation and giving his boss migraines. There is also the delicate matter of ‘Project Knighthood’ which needs satisfying. After steering Lloyds back into private ownership, colleagues say underappreciated Antonio, 54, pines for a gong like a lovelorn tabby cat. Goldman Sachs’s chief executiveelect and part- time DJ David Solomons took to the decks last weekend in Long Island’s fashionable Montauk, wearing a pair of headphones monogrammed with his stage moniker ‘DJ Sol’. Does Solomon, 55, hope to emulate the success of unchivalrous hip-hop mogul Dr Dre, whose Beats headphones became a must-have fashion accessory? Former drug dealer Dre, 53, sold Beats to Apple in 2003 for £2bn. Amazon finally hit its $1trillion valuation this week just hours before the retail behemoth’s summer party in Shoreditch. Not that you would have known it to have been there. No valedictory announcement, no champagne. Just girls in jeans and men in beards sipping craft beer and chatting politely. All very Silicon Valley. Doesn’t it make you yearn for the City’s debauched, Louis Roederer-fuelled good old/bad old days before the crash? Nike shares tumbled this week after customers were divided by an advert featuring Colin Kaepernick, an NFL player who refused to stand for the national anthem to highlight racial injustice. Nike bosses should ponder the marketing wisdom of basketball legend Michael Jordan. He once declined endorsing a Democrat senator, reasoning: ‘Republicans buy sneakers too.’ Former Bank of England governor Lord King’s caustic remarks about the Government’s handling of Brexit are a timely coup for his interviewer, BBC business editor Simon Jack. Tousle-haired Simon, 47, who bears more than a passing resemblance to a young Gordon Brown, craves the more senior economics editor job recently vacated by that accomplished greaser, Kamal Ahmed.