Green-fingered Lady and Lord Mayor get muddy in the forest
SPADES and wellies were order of the day when Lord Mayor Roger Gifford and his wife, the Lady Mayoress, ventured deep into forest territory this week, ankle-deep in mud.
The couple were planting three trees to launch the Gifford Wood Appeal, an effort which will help safeguard 30 acres of land at Horseshoe Hill under the Epping Forest Act.
The site was acquired by the City of London Corporation last year. However from the looks of the photographic evidence, it rather appears that the Lady Mayoress was getting more stuck into the hard labour than her green-fingered husband.
■ There is somebody out there in the Square Mile who is missing out on a tidy £1m cash lump sum. No, not a late bonus, but an unclaimed EuroMillions raffle prize draw. The ticket, purchased in the City of London on 11 January, mysteriously remains unclaimed. The Capitalist’s Camelot spies inform that this isn’t the first time a prize has escaped an unlucky pair of City hands. A £267,000 ticket expired in 2010, with the money reverting to The National Lottery Good Causes. To jog players’ memories, Calvin Harris was at the top of the album charts with 18 Months on the day of the draw, Fulham Football Club were held by Wigan to a 1-1 draw at Craven Cottage, Harlequins scored a 47-8 win over Connacht in the Heineken Cup and, of course, City A.M. reported that yields on inflation-linked gilt plunged to a record low. Now if that doesn’t ring any bells, The Capitalist doesn’t know what will.