The dastardly Mr Deedes IN DAVOS
What a nuisance this year’s summit is for americans. Not only was it a public holiday on Monday but the big investment banks, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup, announce their end-of-year results this week, meaning many of their big hitters won’t be coming. JP Morgan’s boss Jamie dimon hosts his usual shindig at the Kirchner Museum tomorrow, but as a member of donald Trump’s advisory forum he has to scurry back to Washington for Friday’s presidential inauguration. Whoever was in charge of scheduling needs to be taken out in the snow and shot.
As ever, the high rollers are holed up in the Grandhotel Belvedere, an unlovely building off the main promenade. The recently refurbished hotel is the most sought after spot for top-level schmoozing. Last year, a Silicon Valley tech firm paid £6,000 to hire a luggage store room for a brief meeting with the Estonian president. Those with smaller wallets can try the restaurant, but are likely to find the £40 hot dog or £50 Caesar salad a little ubertrieben (over the top, or OTT), as they say in these parts.
aberdeen asset Management’s hospitable boss Martin Gilbert once again has his mad piper in tow. Stuart Samson, formerly of the Gordon Highlanders, loyally puffs and wheezes away all week outside aberdeen’s pop-up café, impeccably accoutred in full Highland regalia. Tact prevents me asking if he wears anything beneath the kilt. but with yesterday’s temperature settling on a crisp minus 15 degrees, would any one hold it against the poor laddie?
Most anticipated party of the week is held by Lord Mandelson’s old friend Oleg Deripaska, due to take place at the Russian oligarch’s chalet tomorrow night. Previous soirées are described as ‘endless streams of the finest champagne, vodka and Russian caviar amidst dancing Cossacks and beautiful Russian models’. Sounds frightful. Still, I better pop in and see what all the fuss is about.
President Xi Jinping’s appearance, the first by a Chinese leader, received top billing yesterday but most of the excitement around the resort concerned the arrival of dainty Colombian singer Shakira, who is in town promoting her education foundation, Pies descalzos. There is something mildly peculiar about being lectured on the fate of the world’s poorest children by a gyrating, multi-millionaire pop star displaying eye-popping cleavage, but I make no complaint.