The dastardly Mr Deedes

Ripples of discontent at New Zealand Golf Club, the ultra-exclusive club situated in Surrey where velvety hotelier Sir Rocco Forte likes to swing his sticks. The course falls within a plot recently earmarked by local authorities for potential development of 1,200 homes. Woking Council say any decision over the club’s fate remains some way off. But since New Zealand’s illustrious 300 members include well-appointed legal types, they can doubtless expect a few fireworks in the meantime. If ex-Barclays boss Bob Diamond hopes to revive his City glory days in taking over Panmure Gordon, he’ll do so without his two trusted former executives, Rich Ricci and Jerry Del Missier. The brash trio were known collectively as Barclays’ Three Musketeers. Ricci has since reinvented himself as a squirish collector of racehorses and spiffing tweeds. Del Missier was last heard of running Copper Street Capital, an investment firm he set up in Maidenhead which shares a building with a plumbing firm called Flush Gordon. Lofty former Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson, 55, used his weekend newspaper column to candidly address his blackballing by London’s Garrick Club in 2009, which he claims was done ‘at the instigation of an old business colleague’. He spoils it by adding haughtily: ‘I was advised to re-apply but I don’t like wearing ties and prefer clubs that admit women.’ Legendary investor Warren Buffett is selling his holiday home in California’s Laguna Beach – which he bought for just £100,000 in 1971 – for £9m. Although he pays himself an annual stipend of only £80,000, Buffett, 86, is bound by a pledge to hand over £2bn each year to Bill Gates’s foundation. US hedge fund drama Billions mischievously suggested last week the two buddy-buddy squillionaires might not like each other as much as they claim. Is the Square Mile’s organ-playing Lord Mayor, Andrew Parmley, racier than his slightly dusty appearance suggests? A profile in the Wall Street Journal claims that during his hot youth, the ex-public school teacher, 60, played synthesiser in a prog-rock band called Second Chance.