The dastardly Mr Deedes

The jostling to succeed ex-BP chief Lord Browne as chairman of the Tate provides welcome intrigue. Fingers-inevery-pie PR fixer Roland Rudd, 56, is mustard keen but worries that interim chairman, Financial Times editor Lionel Barber, could scupper him. Relations between them while colleagues at the FT were not warm, and Barber might fancy the position himself. Meanwhile, the careful consideration being given to dainty Royal Mail boss Moya Greene’s credentials threatens to leave both accomplished poseurs disappointed.

Barclays’ announcement that it will take a £1bn hit from Donald Trump’s tax reforms was an unwelcome birthday present for £8.2m-a-year boss Jes Staley, who was 61 yesterday. What was Jes’s birthday wish for 2018, I wonder? ‘Clinging to his job, if that’s not too fanciful,’ suggests a City observer.

Bloomberg’s billionaires’ index has no place this year for Poundland owner Christo Wiese, whose £5bn fortune fell to just over £1bn when his firm Steinhoff was embroiled in an accountancy scandal. Trouble has a habit of following the South African tycoon, 76. He once tried to board a London flight to Luxembourg with £700,000 stuffed in cases, which he nonchalantly explained was less than two week’s earnings.

Secretive hedge fund boss Spencer Haber, 49, whose firm H/2 Capital Partners is poised to take over the Four Seasons retirement homes, has a fish named in his honour. The Lipogramma Haberi, which was discovered last year during a dive Haber funded, is a yellowbanded basslet, and is described as a docile species which has no predatory instincts. Unlike Haber then.

Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich’s 533ft yacht Eclipse is moored in St Barts, suggesting he’ll press ahead with his New Year’s Eve party on Sunday. Regulars are said to be giving the Caribbean island a swerve this year after the damage caused by Hurricane Irma in September. A welcome absentee: Thuggish film producer Harvey Weinstein, who’s lying doggo after accusations of sexual indecency.