The dastardly Mr Deedes

Publicity friendly Bank of England governor Mark Carney’s unveiling of the new £10 note yesterday seemed somewhat opportunistic. Not only did it require him to travel to Winchester Cathedral, but with Jane Austen’s face appearing on the note it might have been more appropriate to have allowed chief cashier Victoria Cleland do the honours rather than hog the limelight himself. A seasoned City observer sniffs: ‘I don’t recall Mervyn King or Eddie George bothering with these sort of stunts.’ Sir Philip Green’s appointment of Tory peer Karren Brady as chairman of his empire is likely to precipitate a reshuffle of management, says a source. Some question Brady’s independence after she was recently spotted on Green’s £115m yacht, but the source adds: ‘Believe it or not, Philip does actually listen to her.’ Lustrously-maned hedge-funder Pierre Lagrange, who owns Savile Row tailor Huntsman, has commissioned his head cutter to create him a camel overcoat lined with a silk print of one of Francis Bacon’s works. What a natty fellow. But then Belgian-born Pierre, 55, is a peacock of exotic plumage. He’s had his Aston Martin DB5 upholstered in Huntsman’s finest tweeds. Goldman Sachs’s senior director J Michael Evans, 59, has put his home in The Hamptons on the market for a record £115m. The 14-acre Long Island pile comes with five houses, including an eight-bedroom, 12,000-square-foot mansion along with two guest houses and two ‘golf cottages’ overlooking 700ft of beachfront. It apparently makes Goldman boss Lloyd Blankfein’s nearby £24m schloss look like a dilapidated beach shack. Apple excitedly announced it has designed 12 new socially inclusive emojis – those smiley faces you can send on your iPhone – which it will release later this year. The icons will feature more inclusive roles for women, including one in a head scarf and another breast feeding. What a fascinating sociological development. Perhaps it’ll merit an edgy report on Radio 4’s increasingly au courant Today programme.