The dastardly Mr Deedes
Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson, 65, may have found a fellow billionaire to play with on his new caribbean bolthole – Moskito Island. the entrepreneur is building a new private island retreat with space for nine villas. One purchaser understood to be interested is internet nerd Sergey Brin, 42, the Ruskiborn co-founder of Google. the 50 hectare island is also to be home to a population of non-native ring-tailed lemurs being shipped in from a zoo by Branson. conservationists have expressed concern that local flora and fauna is at risk from the ‘opportunistic predators’ which are adept at leaping, clawing and munching. they must be anxious about the lemurs as well.
Re: Beardy. Extremist US presidential candidate and fellow billionaire Donald Trump is unlikely to put his name down for a vacant villa on Branson Isle. The two men have never seen eye to eye after Branson, an avid member of the Magic Circle, once worked some of his wizardry on Trump’s then wife Ivana. Branson’s party trick is to grab a guest and, with a sleight of hand, turn them upside down. Trump has never forgiven Branson for inverting Ivana at a black tie event and dangling her over a swimming pool. The Yank was fuming that previously undisclosed family assets went on display for all to see.
Downmarket nightclub group Deltic recently boasted that profits had boomed on the back of new private VIP areas for women. But something was lost in translation when the firm’s party-popping publicists explained that clubbers at its Pryzm venue in Kingston, Surrey, had literally queued down the street to gain access to the ladies’ private areas. Oh dear.
News that veteran retail guru Harold Tillman is in the race to rescue Austin Reed was met with muted applause at the gentleman’s outfitter. Sickly smooth Tillman, 70, is credited with having become the youngest person to float a company when at 24, in 1969, he launched his Lincroft Kilgour fashion chain on the stock market. But it has been downhill from there. The permatanned entrepreneur’s crumbling retail legacy includes department stores group Allders, fashion brand Jaeger, and 160-yearold Aquascutum. Is this really the retail genius expected to work some magic to turn around Austin Reed?