REVEALED: HOW RICHARD DESMOND FIRST DRUMMED UP NEW BUSINESS
EVERYONE has to start somewhere. Even Richard Desmond, the media baron with a personal fortune of £950m who bought Channel Five last July with some spare change he found down the back of his sofa.
Desmond started on the road to founding his media empire early – aged 13, in fact, when he took his first job as cloakroom assistant in the renowned music venue Manor House, for which he was paid the princely sum of £1 per night.
The North London pub was where the young Desmond first met the stars who would later form the mainstay of his celebrity magazine OK! – Rod Stewart, Elton John – and it was also the scene of his chats between breaks with the percussionist in Zoot Money and the Big Roll Band, who persuaded the young Desmond to take drumming lessons.
The rest – via numerous colourful episodes – is history, after Desmond went on to found his charity band The Crusaders with The Who’s Roger Daltrey, which has made millions for causes such as Desmond’s Children’s Eye Centre at Moorfields Eye Hospital.
The tale is one of the many anecdotes in Desmond’s This Is Your Life-style interview with Tania Bryer on CNBC, to be aired at 10pm on 15 June, where the enigma reveals what motivates him, why he will never slow down and the reason he likes music so much – it is, apparently: “Because it helps me get away from it all.”
No word yet, though, on whether Desmond will address the rumours swirling around the City that he is considering either selling his four national newspapers or plotting a merger with Lord Rothermere’s Mail Newspapers, as advised by analysts at Barclays Capital and Goldman Sachs…
OFF THE MENU
CORPORATE entertaining can be a stressful business – just ask Royal London Asset Management, whose trip to the BNP Paribas Tennis Classic at the Hurlingham Club has become a logistical minefield.
“When I checked to see if any of my guests had any dietary requirements, I meant foods they can’t eat for allergy or religious reasons, but they took my question to mean things they just don’t like,” said an RLAM mole.
One client doesn’t like seafood, another refuses to eat sultanas or mushrooms, and a third is “not drinking alcohol in June”. Which is a problem, because the date of the planned client “entertainment” is a week next Tuesday.
THAT’S NOT CRICKET
MERVYN King is a man of many talents: on 23 June, the Bank of England governor and cricket fan will leave Threadneedle Street to spend the day teaching state school children maths by using cricket analogies.
Strange, but true – The Capitalist hears King (below) will help out in a “cricket-themed maths class where pupils learn co-ordinates from the positions of players on a cricket field”.
King’s involvement is part of the Chance to Shine sports development campaign on Brit Insurance National Cricket Day – no doubt GCSE maths grades will rocket.
BELL RINGERS
LISTEN out at 12.45pm today, when the new ring of 12 bells at St Michael’s Cornhill will sound out for the first time in the Ascension Day service.
The bells, which were consecrated by the Bishop of London, are the first new complete ring of 12 bells in the City since the bells of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1878, described by their makers as “a modern example of true harmonic bell tuning”.
The bells were donated by businessman Dill Faulkes and 60 other donors, including members of the Ancient Society of College Youths, the organisation that has provided most of the ringing in the City of London since the body was founded in 1637.
BARKING MAD
BANK Holiday Monday brought entertainment for Richmond-based City girls, boys… and dogs, when the Gaucho restaurant in Richmond launched “doggy Monday”, a canine friendly evening where dogs were “welcomed” by soft cow toys.
You couldn’t make it up – even Hudson, the labradoodle owned by Gaucho Restaurants’ operations director Martin Williams showed up for a T-bone steak.
MILE HIGH CLUB
HERE’S an early contender for October’s biggest Bill of the Week: a Michelin-starred dinner for ten served in a pod of the London Eye, now on sale for £15,000.
The six-course dinner is being offered from 3 to 6 October as part of the London Restaurant Festival. Parties will start their evening with drinks at the Savoy, followed by a six-course dinner inside a London Eye capsule cooked by chefs including Angela Hartnett and Marcus Wareing, rounded off with an overnight stay in the Savoy.
To put a new spin on client entertaining, please call 020 7259 0940.