Sir Paul Tucker’s mufti Monday
ATTENDEES of the Eurofi High Level Summit in Athens were impressed yesterday to see how quickly the university lifestyle had affected former Bank of England deputy Sir Paul Tucker. The event, hosted by former IMF director Jacques de Larosiere and attended by the good and the great of European finance, kicked off with a panel discussion at which Tucker (now a senior fellow at Harvard) was invited to speak. Eschewing his usual sharp suit, Tucker approached the stage at the Athens Hilton wearing a casual linen jacket, a stripy shirt and loafers – or “mufti” as one of The Capitalist’s spies described it.
However, it turned out not to be Tucker’s new uniform of choice, but the result of an unfortunate airport snafu. Tucker started his speech apologising for his attire – telling the room of suited financial bigwigs his luggage had been mislaid by the airline and he was in something of a sartorial fix.
Let’s hope he gets his bags back in time for today’s proceedings.
■ MICHAEL LEWIS’s latest Wall Street expose has hit the shelves, and no doubt Wall Street’s big names have been leafing through it praying not to get a mention. But one hat tip in the Liar’s Poker author’s latest page turner will no doubt have pleased some folks. Namely the writers of HBO series The Wire. The opening quote in the book is one uttered by Wire character Omar Little: “A man got to have a code.” Indeed he do.