Martin Waller: City Diary
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HgCapital, the private equity group, is in trouble with the residents of the Weald of Kent over the possible funding of a wind turbine in their back yard. The Kent Weald Action Group has a website devoted to the protest, and accuses Hg of being socially irresponsible in siting the turbine within 600m of many people's homes. “We have provided them with evidence of how people's lives have been totally blighted elsewhere by having turbines built too close to their homes.” Hg counters: “This is a valuable project which benefits the environment. We've listened to KWAG's complaints, but there are a number of inaccuracies on their website.”
Alas, what has happened here is that Hg has made the mistake of taking on the prosperous middle classes rather than the usual crofters and crusties. The man behind the campaign is a former investment banker, I understand, and the protestors have a sophisticated computer graphics expert on board, as the mock-up pictures of how the turbine would look make clear. Best Not In Their Back Yard, perhaps?
Log on for luxury - if you can afford it
Some enterprising soul has set up an eBay-type site for millionaires. MillionairesBay.com is advertised as the place where you can offload all your unwanted luxury goods and one-of-a-kind items. The business is registered in Southampton. I have no idea how reliable it is. But the notion seems to go against the general concept of eBay, which is about flogging off unwanted stuff cheap. And I am not sure what view the real eBay's intellectual property lawyers might take of it.
A shame to miss such a capital sermon
The phone rings. Why was I not at the Spital Sermon at St Lawrence Jewry, by Guildhall? “It's been going on since the 14th century.” Good reason not to go, then; I remember sermons from my schooldays that seemed to go on for centuries, but this one ... No, no, be serious. It has been preached annually for 700 years, and this year the Lord Mayor, David Lewis, invited David Conner, who is also Bishop to the Armed Services and who preached on Doubting Thomas. “Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe.” Prompting some mutterings in the pews about derivatives.
— The magazine PR Week had the bright idea, ahead of the London mayoral election, of a poll to see who its readers thought would win. The majority of spin merchants, displaying their usual ability to get the facts completely right, went for Ken, needless to say. No indication, though, of how many replied: “I'll have to get back to you on that.”
— Just Gladwins, the restaurant in Minster Court whose high-profile opening 13 years ago I well remember, has been sold. Peter Gladwin, the founder, is to concentrate on his other enterprise, off Jermyn Street.
The City site has been snapped up by Jean Paul Maurel, who runs a restaurant in Paris called Bel Canto. Here, the waiters and waitresses are also opera singers and serenade the customers. It is to be the first of a chain of Bel Cantos in the UK, I hear. Is the City ready for this?
— Newly demerged Cadbury is advertising, I notice, for three senior tax advisers, including an international tax manager to work on “new tax initiatives”. The chocolate maker earns a large chunk of profits abroad, and has been mentioned, though I have no reason to suppose any move of domicile is imminent, in the context of protests over the looming changes to tax law that will hit such companies and which could spark a “taxodus” of UK corporates. Interesting.
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