Diary: there’s something fishy going on

Have you heard the one about the future king of England and the mackerel? Diary found itself in the RICS’s hallowed halls last week watching a cook-off between RICS and LandAid chief executives Sean Tompkins and Paul Morrish. The occasion? The launch of the Pledge150 campaign, which seeks to raise £2.25m to combat youth homelessness. The chiefs-turned-chefs were tasked with preparing a dish of mackerel with heritage carrots, citrus and sesame. Steve Groves, head chef of Roux at Parliament Square, led the judging, assisted by the heir to the throne, no less. In judging Morrish to be the winner, Groves went out of his way to praise. The dish prepared by LandAid’s man was “neater” and the “mackerel better cooked”. Both men, he said, had put in “very good efforts”. The Duke of Cambridge, on the other hand, didn’t fish around for compliments. “Someone told me this was a bake off, not a mackerel off,” he said. “I was looking forward to some chocolate cake.” Of Tompkins’ efforts he was even more blunt, asking: “Is that it?” Groves’s boss, Michel Roux Jr, clearly had an inkling about who might triumph. In a video message, he wished the budding chefs well, adding: “Paul Morrish? Or More-ish. That would be a good name for a chef.” Noé reveals personality When Diary secured a rare interview with veteran investor Leo Noé the conversation was packed with colour. And, since the piece was published online earlier this week, two other pieces of Noé trivia have emerged: Property management firm Lee Baron, which he establish in 1977, was named in part after his favourite television show, The Baron, the story of an antique dealer who is really an undercover agent. One of Noé’s legendary investments was in 1970s and ‘80s fizzy drink gadget SodaStream, in which he was once the second-largest shareholder. Thankfully, he got out at the top before the bubble burst.  Property just doesn’t produce the characters that it used to. Pitched just right When you gather a group of property cyclists in a hotel bar after a day battling 143kph crosswinds for almost 100 miles and provide them with beer – kindly donated by the Completely Group – things are going to get a bit rowdy. The noise was a little too much for one hotel guest trying to work in the bar. But after a quiet chat with one of the riders, our worker bee spotted an opportunity. She too, like the 50-plus riders, was on her way to the Mapic conference in Cannes and once she discovered the gaggle of advisers and investors, the complaint over the noise rapidly changed to a pitch. Did anyone fancy buying a €35m warehouse in Monaco? Seems that sometimes the right place at the wrong time is actually the right place at the perfect time. Chairs for that When the Queen and Prince Philip celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary on Monday they no doubt looked back fondly on that day in 1947. And what would have been utmost in the mind? The pomp and ceremony? Their friends and family? Or perhaps the wedding gift they received from the RICS? As the RICS Twitter handle reminded us, the institute kindly donated two armchairs to the happy couple on the day. “We wonder if they still use them?” it mused. Hail to the Chief Big egos are hardly uncommon in the property industry. But few are quite as brazen as Wei Chunxian, the chairman of Hong Kong-listed GR Properties. The company’s £134.5m deal to buy 100 St Paul’s Churchyard, EC4, last week was undertaken through a wholly owned subsidiary – called Talented Chief. This party was a scream The property industry party season is already well underway. Invites flutter down on the EG desk on a daily basis. And while Diary is of course a social butterfly, we can’t possibly make it to every bash. But sometimes, you just have to go. When we saw the bloodstained envelope containing an invitation to a Halloween do with TFT we were intrigued, and the event did not disappoint. Coupled with the usual drinks and canapés, TFT treated us to an evening full of suspense, alter egos and a murder mystery. The interactive visual, audio and musical experience harked back to the heyday of the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. You could say it was to die for…