People & Business: A confusion in Spain over cock and bull

A highly entertaining book goes on sale this week which reveals the eating habits of more than 40 leaders in the property industry. Food for Thought is the brainchild of Iain Watters, director of MEPC, and Derek Penfold of Publishing Business.

Proceeds from the pounds 10 cover price will go towards Centrepoint, the London charity for the homeless. The illustrated book tells us amongst other things that Sir Peter Hunt of Land Securities likes nothing more than to tuck into the Stilton at Rules restaurant near the Strand, while Andrew Huntley of Richard Ellis prefers to shoot and cook his own pheasant.

The story that really caught my eye, however, was from Derek Penfold, who has long been involved in property publishing. Derek says that finding these fine avocados in the bins of the Savoy reminded him of a meal he once ate in a restaurant just a few streets away from the bull ring in Barcelona.

Derek decided to try the day's special, which roughly translated from the Catalan as "the biggest chicken of the plains". He duly tucked into the "two dumpling-looking pieces of meat each as big as a - well, these avocados - pale in colour but tenderly cooked in the exquisite and only mildly fiery sauce".

Derek found the dish "magnificent", to the delight of the staff. Only then did he discover he had eaten the testicles of a bull killed the day before in the nearby bull ring.

Some months later he returned and, undeterred, ordered the same dish: "but the meat was if anything more tender, but much smaller per portion. I asked the waiter whether this was only a trick of my memory, but he replied, 'it is not always the bull which loses the fight'."

City head-hunters tell me they are wallpapering their offices with CVs from Deutsche Morgan Grenfell traders eager to test the waters elsewhere. The epidemic doesn't necessarily mean said traders are unhappy at DMG, they tell me, rather that the "two-year handcuff" contracts which lured them to the outfit in the first place are beginning to expire. Michael Dobson, charged by Deutsche Bank with the task of creating a global investment bank based on Morgan Grenfell, started his hiring splurge just over two years ago. Hence the blizzard of CVs.

Sean Lance, the man anointed to succeed Glaxo Wellcome chief executive Sir Richard Sykes next year, has clearly been anticipating his rise in status in advance of the event.

We learn that Mr Lance, who trousered a handy pounds 562,000 from the company last year, has moved out of his salubrious pad in London's Draycott Place, close to fashionable Sloane Square. History does not relate where he has moved, but it appears that Glaxo has not made any money out of the pounds 75,000 it invested in the home in the early 1990s to ease Mr Lance's move from his South African homeland.

Despite soaring house prices elsewhere in central London, we learn from the latest accounts that Glaxo has merely been paid back its original pounds 75,000. Let's hope Glaxo's other investments prove better value.

James Bethell, son of Lord Bethell of Romford and former editor of this very column, is supervising the launch of the Ministry of Sound's new international radio show. The Ministry of Sound is a converted warehouse somewhere in the depths of the Elephant & Castle, south London, where teenagers spend large amounts of money to "rave" to the latest "jungle vibes" or something like that. It is owned by James Palumbo, the go-getting son of Lord Palumbo.

Young James is also taking afternoons off to work at Tory central office during the general election campaign. No doubt his famous Dunkirk spirit will come in handy.

As for the radio show, which he describes as carrying the "most cutting- edge dance music available" (i.e. incomprehensible electronic beeping), broadcasting starts this week in Japan and will commence in the UK on 17 April. Two hours of beeping a week will be broadcast on the Kiss radio station, with sponsorship from Bud Ice. James says there is also interest from Turkey, China and South Africa.

I strongly urge him to combine both his careers. Media fame and electoral victory awaits for DJs "Def Jam Portillo" and "Two-Pac Howard".