Unlike the usual crop of numpties lined up by Lord Sugar to become his latest Apprentice, one south Londoner at least is showing some business nous.
April Jackson — a former Miss Jamaica who once stepped out with sprinting superstar Usain Bolt — is using her current profile to promote her new restaurant in Brixton, Three Little Birds, which launches on Friday.
Funnily enough, it takes its name from the Bob Marley hit pumped out at stadiums when the sprint king races. But Bolt isn’t a backer of the restaurant — the funding comes mostly from her father and fellow entrepreneur Philip Jackson.
* At last, British Empire Securities & General Trust, the FTSE 250 closed end investment fund, has put out an announcement declaring that it is to change its name. Not bad given that the last outpost of the empire — Hong Kong — lowered the Union flag some 18 years ago. So the new name? It’s British Empire Trust. Not so enlightened then.
* The City is awash with emails topped with greetings of false sincerity. So perhaps we should respect UBS’s opening gambit, contained in an invite to a “small roundtable event” to discuss the “economic, investment and market outlook” for its wealth-management division (don’t get too excited at the back). The opening gambit? “GreetingLine”. Oops.
Pranksters puncture Oliver’s ego with sausage send-up
Jamie Oliver may be busy helping Comrade Corbyn’s army wage a war on sugar but he might want to turn his attention to this banger of a pic doing the rounds. “Prick with a fork,” read the cheekily placed cooking instructions. Spy takes no responsibility for the provenance of the snap, or the not-so-pukka sausages within.
* Spy’s property moles are salivating at the prospect of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development upping sticks from its City HQ where it splashed so much cash it earned the nickname the “glistening bank”. Jacques Attali — then president of the bank — was forced to quit in 1993 after it transpired that £750,000 meant for ailing nations was instead spent on covering the walls in marble. Spy hears BNP Paribas might get the gig to find the EBRD a new home. Marble wholesalers will be on high alert when it makes its mind up.
* Irvine Sellar, the developer behind the Shard, got invited to a drinks bash at the skyscraper thrown by Investec. The bank thoughtfully included directions in case Sellar lost his way.
