The dastardly Mr Deedes

Ryanair scallywag Michael O’Leary is advertising for an assistant. Applicants to what the airline describes as the ‘worst job in Ireland’ should have ‘thick skin’ ‘saintlike patience’ and ‘an ability to operate without sleep or contact with the outside world’. It notes ‘Man U supporters and cyclists will not only be automatically excluded from the process, but will be tracked down, tortured and shot’. Is the ad a spoof? A Ryanair spokesman advises: ‘It’s genuine.’

Deputy Bank of England governor Ben Broadbent remains favourite to succeed Mark Carney as governor in 2019. Broadbent, 51, would certainly be popular choice, regarded by colleagues as affable and easygoing. But some wonder if the Government will want another ex-Goldman Sachs man in the job. His spluttering response on Radio 4’s Today when recently asked about the post (‘I haven’t even thought about it’) at least provided listeners of the early morning snoozeathon some rare comic relief.

JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon, known as Wall Street’s Mr Teflon after surviving a string of scandals, is said to avoid communicating digitally. He occasionally uses email but just to reply with a brief ‘Yes,’ ‘No’ or ‘Thank You’ and never writes anything sub- stantial. A tip from his £2.5m-a-year bootlicker, Tony Blair? The former prime minister famously never put anything down in email while in Downing Street, as he couldn’t use a computer. That was the slippery eel’s excuse, at any rate.

Air France-KLM’s cultivated new boss Jean-Marc Janaillac, whose airline has laid off thousands of staff, says he likes to relieve stress by travelling to his mother’s home near Bordeaux to prune her roses. Perhaps ‘pruning the roses’ should become unmarried Monsieur Janaillac’s delicate euphemism for further job cuts. Last year his executives had their shirts torn from their backs by feral staff during an angry meeting over redundancies.

I hear a troubled businessman’s recent travails are not helped after taking a recent pounding at the casino. He’s a familiar face around Mayfair’s high-stake gaming tables, but can he really have dropped £40m over the course of just one weekend?