JOE LEWIS CLAN BEARS HIS FOURTH GENERATION
The Capitalist is pleased to reveal that Joe Lewis’s first great-granddaughter has arrived into the world.
The name of the currency billionaire’s new clan member is Charlotte, born in London to Joanna, the daughter of Lewis’s daughter Vivienne Silverton, who runs the family’s Isleworth Foundation.
Lewis scuttled back to the Bahamas shortly after Charlotte arrived safely, leaving Bob Ivell to pick up the pieces at Mitchells & Butlers after Lewis had second thoughts about taking control of the troubled pubs and bars operator.
But the All Bar One owner is not the only one to feel the strain following Lewis’s brief sojourn in London earlier this autumn – his famous yacht Aviva is currently undergoing an extensive refit in Malta, after spending too many weeks moored in the murky waters of the Thames.
So Lewis is yachtless as he turns his attention to selling marina-side apartments in Albany, the Bahamas resort in which his investment company Tavistock Group has a stake alongside golfers Tiger Woods and Ernie Els.
Not that he will be too bothered – instead, Lewis can pass the time aboard Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page’s 193-ft supervessel Senses, which has been moored in Albany Marina for more than a month.
Could the creators of the world’s largest search engine be seeking a sunny bolthole? Or are they simply wintering in warmer climes? Only Lewis, as ever, has the answer.
CULTURE VULTURES
THOSE without an advance ticket – which are sold out until late December, by the way – can expect a three-hour wait to see the blockbuster Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery. Not so for Credit Suisse bankers and their valued media contacts though, who sailed straight through to the fifteenth-century masterpieces on Monday night at the bank’s reception at the exhibition.
Of course, it helps if you are a “vital funding platform” for the National Gallery’s exhibition programme, which is why Credit Suisse’s UK CEO James Leigh-Pemberton and senior executives Sebastian Grigg, Russell Chambers and George Maddison were able to enjoy a few culture-soaked hours alone (bar a few pesky journalists) with the beautiful Virgin of the Rocks and The Lady with an Ermine.
DARTS AND DWARVES
FROM highbrow to lowbrow. Some readers may remember Britain’s Bounciest Weather, the forecast on cable channel Live TV presented by Rusty Goffe, a dwarf bouncing on a trampoline.
The segment tragically ended in 1999 – but never fear, because ex-Sun editor and Talksport founder Kelvin Mackenzie (left) is planning to resurrect Rusty’s career on his new broadcast venture Sports Tonight.
Whatever next – topless darts? Absolutely, said Mackenzie, who is appealing to City A.M.’s readers for further “alternative programming” he can introduce to the online TV station in the new year.