Great Scot! It’s Aberdeen Asset’s Caledonian awards
TO Ranald MacDonald’s Boisdale restaurant for the Aberdeen Asset Management Great Scot Awards 2012.
Bagpipes were blaring to welcome tartan–clad guests to the patriotic dinner, held in association with City A.M. and Johnnie Walker Blue Label.
Winners included Lord Steel of Aikwood, fashion designer Pam Hogg, actor Jamie Sives and Olympic gold medallist Tim Baillie – with Sir Alex Ferguson named Greatest Scot of them all.
Previous Scot winner Lorraine Kelly was there to present a trophy this year, although didn’t embrace the spirit of the night as heartily as other guests. Leaving Canary Wharf at an all too respectable hour she told The Capitalist: “My busy career leaves me with a social life of a toddler as I have to be up at 4am.”
■ With Boris out on a charm offensive to India this week, what better time for Prime Minister David Cameron to address spicy food lovers at the eighth annual British Curry Awards? Speaking via video to guests like Chris Grayling MP and UKIP leader Nigel Farage, Cameron offered: “It is often said that curry is Britain’s national dish. It is not just the flavour served up, it is the welcome too.” City curry connoisseurs may be disappointed, but not surprised, to hear that the curry houses of Brick Lane were snubbed on the shortlist for Best City Spice Restaurant. Making the cut were London Wall’s Mehek eaterie and Oxford Street’s Gaylord restaurant, which were pipped to the post by winner Bombay Palace on Connaught Street.
■ There was a huge bevy of executives and advisers at the offices of the London Stock Exchange yesterday to celebrate the flotation of Megafon, the Russian telecoms group controlled by Alisher Usmanov (pictured below). But where was Usmanov himself? Russia’s richest man, whose plans for the flotation did not meet with the approval of one-time adviser Goldman Sachs, was absent from the occasion. “He just couldn’t be in the country for it,” said a spokesman for him yesterday. Which is a shame. For the money-raising was the largest in the UK telecoms sector for 10 years and one of the biggest of a barren year for London.