It's not unusual for seedy-looking individuals to sidle up to me in the colourful watering holes I frequent, but I must confess I did a bit of a double-take the other day when a shadowy figure tapped me on the shoulder at Citypink, the club for young lesbian professionals. I should say that an excess of dry ice on the dance floor and Fernet Branca in my pint glass had combined to occlude my vision somewhat, but even so it took me quite a few seconds to recognise Sir Richard Greenbury, former CEO of the morbidly fusty M&S.
Old Dickie also hangs around the waterfront at Paddington Basin, and the modest single-figure billion stake he holds in the UK's top keks supplier means he retains quite an active interest in ladies' underwear. As well as all the other clothing and food lines, of course.
Now let it be said that Sir Stuart Rose is an old mate from way back, and the fact that he has maintained a close and occasionally horizontal friendship with the good Lady Veronica Pumsey QC for the past few years in no way means that I have been plotting his messy and humiliating demise on the back of my Premium Club statement for all of that time. So clearly I don't take it too kindly when M&S insiders ask me to get behind a plot to oust Rosey at the company's AGM.
I'm not suggesting for a minute that Dickie was intimating such a plan. And even if he were back in the running for his old job, he's way too forgetful in his dotage. Why, he even left a brown envelope containing a not insignificant sum in used notes on the bar in front of me. Tsk, tsk.
Needless to say the cash ended up in a good home - namely on the washstand at the Mme Cathérine B'Ostock Home for Fallen Flowers in Tooting. And whatever should befall Sir Stuart, I dare say he'll bounce back. After all, he's fallen in the shit before, but somehow he always manages to come up smelling of Rosey.
Old Dickie also hangs around the waterfront at Paddington Basin, and the modest single-figure billion stake he holds in the UK's top keks supplier means he retains quite an active interest in ladies' underwear. As well as all the other clothing and food lines, of course.
Now let it be said that Sir Stuart Rose is an old mate from way back, and the fact that he has maintained a close and occasionally horizontal friendship with the good Lady Veronica Pumsey QC for the past few years in no way means that I have been plotting his messy and humiliating demise on the back of my Premium Club statement for all of that time. So clearly I don't take it too kindly when M&S insiders ask me to get behind a plot to oust Rosey at the company's AGM.
I'm not suggesting for a minute that Dickie was intimating such a plan. And even if he were back in the running for his old job, he's way too forgetful in his dotage. Why, he even left a brown envelope containing a not insignificant sum in used notes on the bar in front of me. Tsk, tsk.
Needless to say the cash ended up in a good home - namely on the washstand at the Mme Cathérine B'Ostock Home for Fallen Flowers in Tooting. And whatever should befall Sir Stuart, I dare say he'll bounce back. After all, he's fallen in the shit before, but somehow he always manages to come up smelling of Rosey.
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