It just goes to show that City lawyers are cuddlier than they look. Legal website RollOnFriday reports that a Linklaters associate and trainee sparked a security alert at Lyon airport when a device they were carrying, believed to be a musical teddy bear, was mistaken as a potential bomb by vigilant staff. The Silk Streeters were thought to be flying back from a work ski trip.
RollOnFriday adds: “One of them was held at security, the other was escorted off the plane, both were questioned by police. An area of the airport was cleared and the plane was held and its seats dismantled and searched.”
Let’s hope the same fate didn’t befall Linklaters senior partner Robert Elliott last month when he jetted back from his own “work ski trip” — the World Economic Forum in Davos. But Elliott, a 24-year veteran of the firm who advised on RBS’s ill-fated acquisition of Dutch lender ABN Amro, is too shrewd to be seen out and about with his teddy bear.
Hello boys! Clooney and Carney on TV
This Sunday’s Andrew Marr BBC1 TV show is set to be a swoon-fest.
Not only is actor George Clooney billed to talk but — gasp! — Clooney lookalike Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England, is also a guest. For viewers struggling to tell them apart, it’s Clooney who will be more likely to be talking up the joys of forward guidance while Carney has the film-star grin.
City Spy can report that Marr is doing his homework — the BBC presenter was spotted among the economics hacks in the audience at Carney’s press conference yesterday.
Tokyo turns on the style
London got a peek at the whacky world of Japanese fashion this week when the country’s embassy hosted an evening of emerging talent selected by fashion star Kansai Yamamoto as part of the British Fashion Council’s International Fashion Showcase.
Keiichi Hayashi, Tokyo’s ambassador to London, introduced the evening. Garments on display ranged from a jacket reminiscent of Big Bird and a child’s lobster costume to a dress designed for Grayson Perry. The world’s fashion pack will descend on Fashion Week this weekend — but will there be anything as crazy as the outfits Japan has to offer?
* Congratulations to Michael Acton Smith, the Moshi Monsters tycoon, who was at Buckingham Palace yesterday to pick up his OBE. But the Mind Candy boss and Shoreditch slicker isn’t always living the high life. A few days ago, he tweeted: “Once every five years, I make a big pot of home-made winter vegetable soup. Today is that day.” Spy wonders if he took a Tupperware box of the stuff along for Her Majesty to try.
