The dastardly Mr Deedes

Peter Jones, chairman of asset manager London Group, and his wife, ex-Tory frontbencher Jacqui Lait, 70, were victims of a scam recently when their car broke down in Cape Town. After contacting the rental firm, a recovery truck duly appeared and towed away the vehicle. It later transpired that the Jones’s rescuers were, in fact, opportunistic passers-by, to whom they then had to pay a 6000 rand (£350) bung to get the car back. Jones whimpers: ‘We were left feeling right idiots.’

Lustrously coiffed BT boss Gavin Patterson’s hair oil is beginning to run. Shares are at a five-year low, there’s uncertainty over Premiership football rights plus a gaping £13bn hole in its pension fund. Might Gav’s new chairman, Jan du Plessis, soon feel it is time for change at the top? If so, I’m advised that perky ex-Openreach boss, Liv Garfield, 42, now roosting at Severn Trent, would be well worth a flutter.

Spotted dining solo yesterday lunchtime in fashionable members’ club 5 Hertford Street: Ex-Marks & Spencer boss Marc Bolland, 58. Such a pity that the half-dozen gorgeous lovelies dining at the next-door table didn’t offer a perch to the suave bachelor.

T-Mobile’s Metallica-haired boss John Legere, 59, isn’t your typical Harvard MBA suit. He showed up for an interview with CNBC yesterday dressed as though he’d come straight from a weekend at the Burning Man music festival, wearing a pink neon T-shirt and hoodie, his wrist festooned with leather bracelets. He must also be the only Nasdaq boss who has a vast, gangsta rapper-style medallion dangling from his neck.

Businessweek offers helpful suggestions to bankers looking to spend their recent bonuses, including: A Greubel Forsey Earth watch (£470,000), a diving trip to the wreck of the Titanic (£75,000) and a Kalamazoo wood fire grill (£18,000). If this year’s award was on the measly side, there’s also a unisex briefcase by Hermes for £6,500. ‘A steal,’ readers are advised.