Good afternoon.
Joe Stalin and Mikhail Gorbachev both came from Georgia - not the US back-water, east of Alabama and north of Florida, but the former grain basket of the old Soviet Union. Odd place, Georgia, with dodgy and dangerous politics. So if you've made a bob or two (billions, in truth!) and have unsuccessfully run in an election against the ruling President, you'd probably feel considerably more secure in leafy Leatherhead. That is what Badri Patarkatsishvili thought too, until late last night when he died. Heart attack? Poison? The cops won't know until tomorrow but they are treating it as a suspicious death. So are we, given his friendship with Russian oligarch and fellow billionaire Boris Berezovsky - he was convinced some of the shadowy brigade were running for him.
Ben plays John Le Carre to our Cagney and Lacey.
Lacy curtains were ruffled when Mr Plod came a-calling at a big house in Willesden this morning. It was their JCB versus the baddy's Ferrari. Plod couldn't even find a door such was the security. So what were they looking for, what did they find, and what would it have fetched on the street? Jaw dropping stuff with Sangeeta sounding her sirens and flashing her blues and twos.
I wonder what the post code on that street in Willesden was? If Boris becomes Mayor we can all know without having to trouble Posty. What is more, we'd know if it had "form" - like a criminal record, if a street can have such a thing. Would you want to live there? Would you buy there? Would you want to move? How grateful to Boris would you be? Or not? Harris sends the answers to you, First Class post, at 6.
The Editor in Chief has just pledged to solve the lack of Snicker bars in the canteen. Nina popped down to get the tea as we missed the trolley because we were planning the above mentioned lot with the delicious Faye -(turtle neck grey pencil dress plus ferocious, pointy-toed boots today) and The Big Boss. Ed in Chief said he would "leave no Snicker bar unturned" in his efforts to solve my problem. But if there are no snicker bars, he can't turn or unturn them, can he? Am I led by lions or donkeys?
Out-smarting the donkeys at London Zoo, a lovely new baby monkey called "Vale" - pronounced Varlay not Vale, as in drawing one over things.
Jodie Kidd draws back the veil on London fashion week and we all scream "Galliano" at how well some of the fashion students from London are doing in the big, bad, beautiful world of haute couture.
A male master of all that is Robin who, dapper as a row of Saville Row suits, will tonight sip champagne and then give a weather forecast. Depending on the size of the glass it could be accurate or you could be in Bali for all you'd know! Ken got cross at question time and these two observations are in no way connected...
Nor are the front pages of the London papers though they sometimes have, in direct contradiction of the edicts of capitalist competition, the same lead story. It is as bad as the Old Soviet Union. Damn.
Now I'll have to watch my back all the way home.
Alastair & Nina.
