CANDY BROTHERS TUNE IN TO FOLLOW THEIR REAL-LIFE GOSSIP GIRL
PROPERTY developer Nick Candy famously revealed his guilty pleasures as “fine wine, good Italian pasta, massages and Starbucks coffee”.
But from next Monday, no doubt the One Hyde Park developer will be adding new reality show Made in Chelsea – the West London answer to hit show The Only Way is Essex – to his list of relaxing pursuits.
Why is The Capitalist so sure Nick and his brother Christian will be tuning into the E4 reality series? Because one of the girls on the show, 20-year-old Alexandra “Binky” Felstead, worked front-of-house at Candy & Candy for more than a year.
Apparently, finance isn’t the socialite’s strong point – the brothers used to tease Felstead for thinking financial newswire Bloomberg is a type of flower – but what she lacks in knowledge of capital markets she more than makes up for in enthusiasm for shopping trips to Harvey Nicholls and bar-hopping in five-inch heels on the Kings Road.
The Candy brothers’ protégé is joined on the reality show by Spencer Matthews, who parties until the early hours before rolling in to his work as a broker at 6.30am; Francis Boulle, the 22-year-old heir to his father Max Boulle’s diamond mining empire; and diary columnist Francesca Hull, daughter of banker Robin Hull.
Share the gossip with the Candy brothers by tuning in to E4 at 10.15pm on 9 May to see how the lives and loves of the 12 globetrotting twenty-somethings unfold.
As the show’s makers claim: “Viewers will see the real-life rivalries and relationships that set tongues wagging and phones beeping behind closed doors in some of London’s most exclusive postcodes.”
SNOW PATROLLER
IT WAS business as usual for Douglas Cairns, investment specialist at Threadneedle Asset Management, when he arrived back at his desk on Tuesday morning after setting a world speed record on a flying mission to the North Pole.
Cairns (pictured below), who was forced to cut short a career in the RAF after being diagnosed with type one diabetes, undertook the Diabetes Polar Flight to prove the condition doesn’t have to limit people’s ambitions, flying 1,130 nautical miles from Barrow in Alaska to the North Pole in eight hours and 20 minutes, a record for the category and class of aircraft.
Two of his three GPS systems failed as he circled the North Pole, but Cairns navigated his landing using the angle of the sun, becoming the first light aircraft to land at the Russian research base Barneo Ice Camp. “There were 20 people watching as I landed,” said Cairns. “I was as much a novelty to them as they were to me.”
GATHERING MOSS
HATS OFF to 17-year-old schoolboy Joshua Moss, who has demonstrated “weapons-grade persistence” to get a foot in the door towards his dream job as a City trader.
Moss, who is currently studying for his A-Levels at Southgate Secondary School in Enfield, contacted about 80 senior City figures via coldcalling, emails and LinkedIn, and has made such an impression his CV is now circulating the City.
“The risk of jettisoning a university education is not lost on me entirely, but given the increasing costs and the absolute lack of any career prospects thereafter I really believe the fire in my gut would serve me better elsewhere,” wrote Moss, who has received support from Adam Hart, chairman of London Bridge Capital; Jonathan Keeling, chief executive of Arden Partners; Nick Bealer, head of corporate broking at Cornhill Capital; and Tim Cockroft, chief executive of Singer Capital Markets.
So watch out Lloyd Blankfein and friends, because Moss is determined to “get to the top wherever I go”. “He has the drive to go a long way”, agreed an impressed Hart. “Josh has been networking like a dervish to get into the City and I congratulate anyone who works that hard.”
20 MEN IN A BOAT
MEANWHILE, a team of rowers from executive search firm Russell Reynolds Associates are attempting the world’s first rowing expedition along 1,000km of the Upper Zambezi, from the Angolan border with Zambia to the Victoria Falls.
Completing the trip will demand “discipline, determination and endurance”, says expedition leader Tim Cook of Russell Reynolds, who will set off with his team of 20 – including Antonia Van Deventer, who hopes to become Zambia’s first Olympic rower in the 2012 Olympics – on 29 July. “We will need to row up to 70km a day, and there are several rapids around which we will need to carry the boats around the bush.”
The expedition hopes to raise more than £50,000 for charities supporting the provision of clean water to rural communities in Zambia. See www.rowzambezi.com.