Sloane Ranger

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Social Class in the 21st Century by Mike Savage

Bullingdon Club, call centre, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, Clapham omnibus, Corn Laws, deindustrialization, deskilling, Downton Abbey, emotional labour, financial independence, gender pay gap, gentrification, Gini coefficient, income inequality, liberal capitalism, Mark Zuckerberg, megacity, meritocracy, moral panic, New Urbanism, Occupy movement, old-boy network, precariat, psychological pricing, Sloane Ranger, The Spirit Level, the strength of weak ties, unpaid internship, upwardly mobile, very high income, winner-take-all economy, young professional

The Sunday Times Rich List offers an excellent gauge of these shifts. 3. John Scott, The Upper Class (Basingstoke: 1982). 4. Peter York, ‘The Fall of the Sloane Rangers’, Prospect Magazine, 19 February 2015 or online at http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/sound-and-vision/the-fall-of-the-sloane-rangers-made-in-chelsea. 5. ‘Review of Mitford’, Encounter, 5(5), 1955; also to be found in Mike Savage, Identities and Social Change in Britain since 1940: The Politics of Method (Oxford: 2010), Chapter 4. 6. York, ‘The Fall of the Sloane Rangers’. 7. Owen Jones, The Establishment and How They Get Away with It (London: 2014). A useful recent exploration of the ‘Establishment’ concept is Peter Hennessy, Establishment and Meritocracy (London: 2014). 8.

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This marked a sharp change from previous decades when the wealthy kept their heads down in a period when equality was seen as a good thing. In the 1970s levels of inequality reached their nadir and tax rates on high-income earners reached their peak. In the 1980s, however, the flaunting of wealth started to take on a new legitimacy. The central cultural motif of the 1980s was the ‘Sloane Ranger’, a phrase coined by the marketing consultant Peter York to recognize the revival of a ‘posh’ landed-gentry aesthetic at the heart of a new consumer culture. But tellingly, as York makes clear, this idiom appealed to an aspirant class who sought to identify with the aristocracy: it was not the revival of the landed class itself.

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The Sloane culture we described then was a rather secret garden, neither the grandest toffs, nor the aspirant commercial middle-middles, but something else in between … the newspaper and TV coverage, of course, was overwhelmingly about champagne flutes, luxury brands, Ascot and smart celebrity polo. Increasingly, it became an identity people tried on for size; an identity with proxies in brands and behaviour, rather than beliefs.4 In retrospect, the Sloane Ranger idiom actually looked forward to a consumerist era in which the trappings of ‘posh’ could be identified and attained by upwardly mobile outsiders. It represented the commodification of the posh ‘brand’, and its hiving off from the old landed elite itself. The archetype was Lady Diana Spencer, married into royalty through her unhappy union with Prince Charles in 1981.

No Such Thing as Society by Andy McSmith

"there is no alternative" (TINA), anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bob Geldof, Boris Johnson, British Empire, Brixton riot, Bullingdon Club, call centre, cuban missile crisis, Etonian, F. W. de Klerk, Farzad Bazoft, feminist movement, fixed income, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, friendly fire, full employment, glass ceiling, God and Mammon, greed is good, illegal immigration, index card, John Bercow, Kickstarter, liberal capitalism, light touch regulation, Live Aid, loadsamoney, long peace, means of production, Mikhail Gorbachev, mortgage debt, mutually assured destruction, negative equity, Neil Kinnock, Nelson Mandela, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, old-boy network, popular capitalism, Right to Buy, Ronald Reagan, Rubik’s Cube, Sloane Ranger, South Sea Bubble, spread of share-ownership, Stephen Fry, strikebreaker, Suez crisis 1956, The Chicago School, union organizing, upwardly mobile, urban decay, Winter of Discontent, young professional

Together they were embarking on what would be the most highly publicized event of 1981, although until a few weeks earlier Diana Spencer was barely recognized even within that smart set of wealthy, well-connected young Londoners called the ‘Sloane Rangers’, whose icon she would become. A year of disturbing events, 1981 saw recession, violence in Northern Ireland, and political turmoil, but Diana was a counterpoint to all that. She was the princess of all that was bland. It was entirely fitting that her engagement should be announced in the same week as the launch of the SDP, and that her name should be linked to the Sloane Rangers and to the New Romantics, who – with occasional exceptions – set blandness to the sound of synthesizers.

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So if you bought a £60,000 house in January 1988, by the following January, you were in a property worth £80,000. Why leave that £20,000 of extra equity doing nothing when it could be improving your standard of living? All this ready money had its cultural spin-offs. First, there was the arrival of the word ‘yuppie’, which was new to the language. The Official Sloane Ranger Diary, published in 1983, contains multiple references to ‘noovos’ (nouveau rich), but no yuppies. By the end of 1984, the word ‘noovo’ had disappeared, elbowed out by an American import, which was originally short for ‘young urban professionals’ and used to describe those who backed Senator Gary Hart against the more conservative Walter Mondale in the contest for the Democrat nomination in the 1984 presidential election.

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It was so popular that it spawned other new acronyms, such as ‘dinkies’, meaning ‘double income, no kids’, and ‘nimbies’, short for ‘not in my backyard’, which applied to homeowners who accepted in principle the need to build roads, houses, shopping centres, but not near their properties. The sociologist Laurie Taylor noted in 1985: The pressure to categorize yourself has become obsessive. No sooner have you decided whether you are a Mayfair Mercenary or a Sloane Ranger than you have to check your NAFF or WALLY tendencies and consider whether you have what it takes to be a YUPPIE, a Yap or a Young Fogey. If you want a grand theory for this phenomenon, you could, I suppose, suggest that it is linked to a firm belief that our present status is unlikely to change in these difficult economic times and that, therefore, we should hang on tightly to what we have got.27 The rise of yuppies followed hot on the heels of another fashion, which seems to have arisen as an indirect result of the 1981 riots.

Fuller Memorandum by Stross, Charles

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, Beeching cuts, Bletchley Park, British Empire, carbon credits, cognitive dissonance, complexity theory, congestion charging, Crossrail, death from overwork, dumpster diving, escalation ladder, false flag, finite state, Firefox, Herman Kahn, HyperCard, invisible hand, land reform, linear programming, messenger bag, MITM: man-in-the-middle, operational security, peak oil, Plato's cave, post-work, prosperity theology / prosperity gospel / gospel of success, quantum entanglement, reality distortion field, security theater, sensible shoes, side project, Sloane Ranger, telemarketer, Turing machine

Headless-Shotgun--who has left his trench broom somewhere else--nudges me in the back; another guy (young, blond, probably the friend with the handcuffs) is watching from the far side of the room, while the woman from the cycle path the other night squats in front of me, peering at my face. She's a twenty-something rosy-cheeked embryonic Sloane Ranger--the anti-goth incarnate--with bouncy ponytail and plumped-up lips quirking with humor beneath eyes utterly devoid of anything resembling pity. She probably shops in Harvey Nicks and dotes on her pony. "It speaks," she declares, in a home-counties accent so sharp you could cut glass with it. "Pharaoh be praised."

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"We have merely been assuming that the copy of the Fuller Memorandum that James gave your husband contains a corrupted copy of the Sternberg Fragment. But James did not intend the situation to spin this far from his control. The worst possible case is that they have the real thing, the Sternberg Fragment and the document describing the binding of the Eater of Souls, and that they know what to do with it." JONQUIL THE PSYCHOPATHIC SLOANE RANGER HACKS AWAY AT my arm for what feels like a year and is probably a bit less than a minute. Then she gets annoyed. "Julian, do something about the screaming, will you? It's giving me a headache." Julian Headless-Shotgun pulls a leather glove out of one of his pockets and tries to stuff it in my mouth.

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It was easy enough to close down the cemetery--police roadblocks, reports about an illegal rave and graveyard vandalism, a handful of D-notices to gag the more annoying local reporters--but then they had to do something with the bodies. The feeders raised just about everything that wasn't totally dismembered and disarticulated. In the end, they had to bring in bulldozers and dig trenches. They identified some of the cultists--but not Jonquil the Sloane Ranger, or her boyfriend Julian. I don't think Brookwood will reopen for a long time. Brains has been given a good talking-to, and is being subjected to the Security Theater Special Variety Show for breaching about sixteen different regulations by installing beta software on an employee's personal phone.

The Road to Somewhere: The Populist Revolt and the Future of Politics by David Goodhart

Affordable Care Act / Obamacare, agricultural Revolution, assortative mating, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, borderless world, Boris Johnson, Branko Milanovic, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, central bank independence, centre right, coherent worldview, corporate governance, credit crunch, Crossrail, deglobalization, deindustrialization, Donald Trump, Downton Abbey, Edward Glaeser, en.wikipedia.org, Etonian, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, falling living standards, first-past-the-post, gender pay gap, gig economy, glass ceiling, global supply chain, global village, Great Leap Forward, illegal immigration, income inequality, informal economy, Jeremy Corbyn, job satisfaction, knowledge economy, labour market flexibility, low skilled workers, market friction, mass immigration, meritocracy, mittelstand, Neil Kinnock, New Urbanism, non-tariff barriers, North Sea oil, obamacare, old-boy network, open borders, open immigration, Peter Singer: altruism, post-industrial society, post-materialism, postnationalism / post nation state, race to the bottom, Richard Florida, Ronald Reagan, selection bias, shareholder value, Skype, Sloane Ranger, stem cell, the long tail, Thomas L Friedman, transaction costs, trickle-down economics, ultimatum game, upwardly mobile, wages for housework, white flight, women in the workforce, working poor, working-age population, World Values Survey

, 2 January 2013, https://www.migrationwatchuk.org/briefing-paper/286 51.James Pickford, ‘First time buyers in London still priced out despite Help to Buy’, Financial Times, 11 December 2015, https://www.ft.com/content/09eed7fe-9e92–11e5-b45d-4812f209f861 and Peter York, ‘The fall of the Sloane Rangers’, Prospect, 19 February 2015, www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/the-fall-of-the-sloane-rangers-made-in-chelsea 52.ONS, Statistical bulletin: ‘Personal well-being in the UK: 2015 to 2016’, 7 July 2016, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/bulletins/measuringnationalwellbeing/2015to2016 53.Yorkshire Building Society, ‘Yorkshire Building Society Trust Study’, 2013 www.ybs.co.uk/images/media-centre/YorkshireBuildingSocietyTrustStudy.pdf 54.Hannah Aldridge, Theo Barry Born, Adam Tinson and Tom MacInnes, ‘London’s Poverty Profile 2015’, Trust for London, 2015, p. 23. 55.

Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back by Oliver Bullough

Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, Bernie Madoff, bitcoin, blood diamond, Bretton Woods, Brexit referendum, BRICs, British Empire, capital controls, central bank independence, corporate governance, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, dark matter, diversification, Donald Trump, energy security, failed state, financial engineering, Flash crash, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, Global Witness, high net worth, if you see hoof prints, think horses—not zebras, income inequality, joint-stock company, land bank, liberal capitalism, liberal world order, mass immigration, medical malpractice, Navinder Sarao, offshore financial centre, plutocrats, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, rent-seeking, Richard Feynman, risk tolerance, Sloane Ranger, sovereign wealth fund, Suez crisis 1956, WikiLeaks

In those days, I suppose our clients were mainly British, particularly in Kensington. It was a very residential British area,’ he recalled. Princess Diana and Prince Charles lived in Kensington Palace, which helped boost the borough, and gave its richer inhabitants a distinct identity; they were nicknamed ‘Sloane Rangers’, after their favoured haunt of Sloane Square, and Diana was their exemplar. They were said to be defiantly anti-intellectual, to love country sports, and to spend their money on Hermès scarves and Range Rovers. But even these wealthy Brits had stopped buying by late 1992, which is when a completely unexpected client walked into the estate agent’s office.

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157–8 Henley & Partners 136–9, 149–51, 155–6, 251 Henry, James 47 Herbert, William ‘Billy’ 144, 145–8 Hergé 38 Heritage Foundation 261 Heydarov, Kamaladdin 273–4 Heydarov, Nijat 11, 274 Heydarov, Tale 11, 274, 275 Holder, Eric 186 Hong Kong 19, 46, 98, 143–4 Hoppner, Harold 137 Human Rights Watch 119 Hydra Lenders 54 IBC Bank of Laredo 270 Idaho 57, 255 Iglesias, Julio 226 incorporation agents 77–8, 83–4, 93, 94–5 Indian Creek, Florida 226–7, 229 Indonesia 9, 10 inequality 5–6, 11, 14–15, 27, 102 and plutonomy 233–5, 240–1 International Maritime Organization (IMO) 159, 162 International Monetary Fund (IMF) 28, 34, 277 Angola 213 and corruption 133–4 illegal money 181 Russia 65, 66, 67 St Kitts and Nevis 151 Ukraine 192 Isle of Man 19, 21, 186, 265 Ismaylova, Khadija 55 Israel 240 Italy 81 Ivanov, Viktor 206 Ivanyushchenko, Yuri 194 Jackson, Michael 183 Japan 85–6, 166 Jersey 19, 46, 60–4, 71, 184, 250, 269, 276, 278 Christensen 61–2 and FIMACO 66–7 Powell and Harper 62–4 Kadyrov, Ramzan 166, 239 Kalin, Christian 135–6, 137, 149–51, 155–6 Kaplin, Sergei 116 Kapur, Ajay 233–7, 240–1 Karimova, Gulnara 97–8 Karpov, Pavel 179–80 Kasko, Vitaly 189–90, 191–2, 194–5 Kazakhstan 10, 92, 184 Kelly, Karen 242 Kensington and Chelsea 221–3 Kenya 184–5 Keogh, Jim 35 Keynes, John Maynard 28, 277 Khan, Nadeem 83–4 King, Justice Eleanor 52 Kleinfeld Bridal 210, 211, 212, 216 kleptocracy 122, 123, 125, 130 see also corruption Klitgaard, Robert 130–1 Knight, Pau 81 Korner, Eric 41–2 Kovtun, Dmitry 203–4, 206, 207 Kramer, Al 264–5 Kyrgyzstan 6 Labour Party (St Kitts and Nevis) 142–3, 144–5, 149 Landscape of Lies 81 Las Vegas 254 Latvia 98, 189, 193 Lawrence, Laurie 52 Legal Nominees Ltd 82–3, 84 Lenin, Vladimir 209 Lesin, Mikhail 208 Lethal Weapon 2 160–1 libel tourism 169, 172–5, 179–80 Liberia 19, 49 Libya 9, 11, 91, 195 Liechtenstein 19, 76, 183 Limited Liability Companies (LLCs) 50, 91 Lindblad, Göran 274 Litvinenko, Alexander 196–209 Litvinenko, Marina 196–200, 205 Lombard Odier 98 London 9, 23, 25, 33 Harley Street 74–84 Kleptocracy Tours 17–20 Litvinenko murder 196–209 private banking 99, 101, 102 property 10, 17–20, 87, 218, 221–4, 237, 269 see also City of London London Kleptocracy Tours 17–20 Los Angeles 9 Low, Jho 156 Lugovoy, Andrei 203–4, 205–7 Luxembourg 17, 46, 71 eurobonds 39, 40, 41 McGown, Ally 211, 214 Macias Nguema, Francisco 119, 130 McLean, Andrea 81 Macpherson, Elle 229 Macron, Emmanuel 55, 59 Magnitsky, Sergei 55, 92, 178–80 Mainichi Shimbun 85–6 Malaysia 7, 9, 240, 270 Malta 136, 137, 138, 155, 156 Manafort, Paul 13–14, 17, 19, 69, 270–1 Marchenko, Oleg 112 Marcos, Imelda 121 Marcovici, Philip 250 Marshall Islands 274 Marx, Karl 209 Mauritius 19 May, Theresa 187 Mayer, Jane 272 MC Brooklyn Holdings LLC 14 MCA Shipping 19 Merrill Lynch Bank 240 Mexico 15, 99–100, 111, 270 Mezhyhirya palace 1–3, 9 Miami 9, 23, 87–8, 226–30 Miller, Jed 18–19 Miller, Jonathan 220–1 Mishcon de Reya 162 Mitchell, Daniel 261 Mitchell, Don 146 Moghadam, Alizera 156 Monaco 9, 19, 186 Moneyland 21, 22–6, 278 creation 26, 27–48, 70–1 defending 20, 24, 135–209 fighting back 24, 242–53, 269–78 hiding wealth 10, 12–14, 24, 49–102, 254–68 spending 17–20, 24, 210–17, 218–41 stealing 1–12, 14–16, 23, 24, 103–34, 270–1 Montana 95 Montenegro 136 Montfler SA 275 Moore, Michael 237 Moran, Rick 242 Morgenthau, Henry 87, 272 Morning Star 50, 57 Moscow, John 61–2 MPLA 212, 213, 214 Mueller, Robert 12–13, 14, 69, 270 Murray, Andy 269 Musy, Oleg 113–15 NAV Sarao Milking Markets Fund 54 Nazarabayev, Nursultan 184 Netherlands 91, 98 Netherlands Antilles 43 Neufeld, David 50 Nevada 269, 278 company formation 93–4, 95, 96 trusts 255, 256–8, 261–5, 266 Nevis 49–60, 139, 144, 266–8, 269, 277 Nevis International Trust Company (NITC) 57 New York 9, 23, 25, 98 banking 33, 36, 101, 102 Manafort 12–14 property 10, 218–21, 224–6, 230–1, 269 New York Times 156 New Zealand 16, 92 Nigeria 10–11, 12, 270 Achebe 123–5 advanced fee fraud 128–9 asset recovery 10, 54–5, 182, 183, 184, 185 corruption 9, 86–7, 123–6, 128–30, 132, 269 Nisbett Invest SA 275 No Longer At Ease (Achebe) 123–4 Nobre, Luis 80–1, 84 Nominee Director Ltd 84 North Korea 16 Northern Ireland 272 Norway 81 Novata Gazeta 72–3 Obama, Barack 267 Obiang, Teodorin 131–2, 133, 237–8 Obiang, Teodoro 119, 131, 183, 237–8 Oesterlund, Robert 53 offshore 36, 45–7, 273 eurobonds 39–43 eurodollars 36, 252 sharing data 246, 248–53, 259 see also Moneyland offshore radio stations 35–6 O’Flaherty, Victoria 140–2 Okemo, Chrysanthus 184 Olenicoff, Igor 244 Olson, Mancur 21–2 Olswang 179 One Hyde Park 224 Onipko, Natalya 104–5, 108–10 Orange Revolution 23 Oregon 96 Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) 251 Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) 57 Orwell, George 121 Owen, Robert 207 Oxfam 133, 251 P&A Corporate Services Trust Reg 76 Pakistan 12 Palmer, Richard 69–70 Panama 19, 270 Panoceanic Trading Corporation 19 passports 20, 136–56, 251, 277 Paton, Leslie 75 Pawar, Charlotte 83, 276 Penney, Andrew 258 Pennsylvania 95 People’s Action Movement (PAM) (St Kitts and Nevis) 142–3, 145, 149 People’s Prosecutor 116 Perepada, Gennady 224–6, 271 Perepilichny, Alexander 208 person with significant control (PSC) 276 Peru 7 Peters & Peters 171, 188, 191, 192 Philippines 7, 9, 121, 182–3, 240 Pichulik, Dylan 230–1 Piketty, Thomas 14, 233 pirate radio stations 35–6 plutonomy 217, 233–41 Poland 125 Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) 100 polonium-210 202–3, 204, 207, 208 Pompolo Limited 270 Power, Graham 62–4 PR agencies 176–7 Premier Trust 257 privacy 273 bank accounts 245–53, 259–61, 270, 276 corporate structures 82–4, 275–6 trusts 261–3 private banking 99–101, 132–3 Professional Nominees 82–3, 84 Proksch, Reinhard 76 property 10, 57, 218–32, 237, 269, 276 London 17–20, 87 Purnell, Jon 98 Pursglove, Sarah 53 Putin, Vladimir 5, 16, 72–3, 272 and Browder 178 and Litvinenko 201, 204, 206 and organised crime 172–3 and Skuratov video 72 and Ukraine 166 Pyatt, Geoffrey 192–3 Qualified Intermediary (QI) scheme 245, 246, 247, 249 Rajatnaram, Sinnathamby 121–2, 125 Raven, Ronald 75 Rejniak, Marek 80 Reno 253, 254–5, 257–8, 261–3, 265 Riggs Bank 131 Rijock, Kenneth 146–7, 148 Robins, Craig 229 Rolling Stones 31 Romania 81 Rothschild & Co 258, 265 Rowling, J.K. 271 Russia 11, 121, 270 Bentley cars 5–6 Berezniki 219–20 Browder 177–80 corruption 17, 25, 65–70, 72–3, 95, 173 and Crimea 11–12, 105 FIMACO 65–8, 72 inequality 5–6, 15–16, 240 and Litvinenko murder 203–9 Magnitsky affair 92 and Nevis 55, 57, 58, 59 offshore wealth 9, 47, 66–70, 95, 182 overseas property 219–20, 222, 225, 228 sanctions 137, 166 Teva Pharmaceutical 111 and Ukraine 11–12, 166 and US presidential election 13, 271, 272 watches 238–9 Yukos oil company 96 Rybolovlev, Dmitry 219–20 Saez, Emmanuel 233 St Kitts 56, 139 St Kitts and Nevis 49, 139, 142, 278 Economic Citizenship Programme 139–56 see also Nevis St Lucia 138, 155, 159–60, 161–4 St Vincent and the Grenadines 17, 19 Sakvarelidze, David 192, 193, 194, 195 Salinas, Raul 99–100 Sanchez, Alex 260 Sarao, Navinder 54 Saviano, Roberto 127 Savills 223 Say Yes to the Dress 210–12, 214–16 Schwebel, Gerry 270 Scotland 9 Second World War 26, 27 secrecy see privacy Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) (US) 111 Semivolos, Andrei 105–6, 116, 117 Serious Fraud Office (SFO) (UK) 187, 189, 190–1, 194 Seychelles 9, 19, 84 Sharp, Howard 184–5 Shchepotin, Igor 103, 105, 110, 114, 115–17 Shedada, Kamal 154–5 shell companies 10, 17, 19, 50–5, 87–97 Sheridan, Jim 274 Sherpa 89 Sherwin & Noble (S&N) 78–80 Shvets, Yuri 206 Sidorenko, Konstantin 104, 110–11 Sigma Tech Enterprises 84 Silkenat, James 89 Simmonds, Kennedy 144, 148, 153 Singapore 46, 121, 240 Skripal, Sergei 208 Skuratov, Yuri 65–6, 72 Sloane Rangers 221–2 Smith, Mr Justice Peter 90 Smith, Vaughan 171–2 Snyder, Shawn 51 Soffer, Donald 229 Soffer, Jackie 229 Soffer, Jeffrey 229 Soloman, Sam 83 Somalia 16, 91, 127 Sonangol 213 Sooliman, Imtiaz 137 South Dakota 255, 258, 263 South Sudan 16 Soviet Union and Angola 212–13 dissolution 4–5 eurodollars 34, 35 healthcare 106 see also Azerbaijan; Kazakhstan; Kyrgyzstan; Russia; Ukraine; Uzbekistan SP Trading 92 Spain 206–7 spending 24, 216–17, 235–6 Say Yes to the Dress 210–16 watches 238–9 whisky 240 wine 239 see also property Spink, Mike 224 Spira, Peter 39, 40–1 Stephens, Mark 160 Stolen Asset Recovery (StAR) initiative 89 succession planning 60 sugar 149 Sukholuchya shooting lodge 3–4, 5, 8–9, 75–6 Sunny Isles Beach, Florida 228–30 Sutton, Heidi-Lynn 58–60, 277 Sweden 182 Switzerland 46, 102, 266 asset recovery 98, 182–3, 184, 185 bank secrecy 37–9, 40, 41, 42, 71, 99, 242–8, 253, 259–60, 261 sharing data 251 and United States 24, 242–8 watches 238 Syria 20 Taiwan 55, 59, 240 Takilant 98 Tax Justice Network 62, 89 TEAS (The European Azerbaijan Society) 273–5 Teliasonera 98 Teva Pharmaceutical 111–12 Thurlow, Edward 91 Tintin 38 Tobon, John 87–9, 228, 276 Tonga 143 Tornai, Pnina 210–12, 214–15, 216 Transparency International (TI) 16, 89, 119, 127, 174 Trump, Donald 210, 277–8 election 13, 69, 270, 277 properties 1, 220 Russian ties 228 trust 117 trusts 60, 255–8, 261–6 Tunisia 7 Turover, Felipe 72–3 UBS 61, 245, 246–7, 248, 258–9 Ukraine 11 2014 revolution 1–4, 10, 23, 104, 105–6, 113–14, 186 asset recovery 186–95 Aveiro 275 company reporting 275 corruption 6–7, 9, 11–12, 15, 17, 20, 103–17, 170–2, 269, 270 Crimea 11–12, 105 healthcare 103–17, 170–2 Manafort 13 Mezhyhirya palace 1–3, 9 and Nevis 55, 59 Orange Revolution 23 sanctions 166–9, 194 Sukholuchya shooting lodge 3–4, 5, 8–9, 75–6 ultra-high-net worth people (UNNWs) 101–2 UNITA 212, 213, 214 United Kingdom (UK) anti-corruption agenda 278 asset recovery 185, 186–95 and Azerbaijan 273–5 Brexit referendum 138, 271, 272, 278 Bribery Act 89 companies 77, 82, 91, 276 corruption 17, 127 currency crisis 34 Financial Conduct Authority 89 inequality 235 inflows of money 182 libel laws 169–75, 179 and Nevis 57 pirate radio stations 35–6 and Russia 173, 204–5, 222, 266 and St Lucia 161 sharing data 249–50 Skripal poisoning 208 and Ukraine 186–95 visas 138 Welfare State 31 see also City of London; London United Nations 126–7 United States 2016 presidential election 271, 272 and Angola 212, 213 anti-bribery measures 277–8 asset recovery 183–4, 185, 186, 190, 192–3 bank secrecy 260–1, 270 banks 31, 44, 45 Bretton Woods system 28, 34, 43–4 corruption 17 and Equatorial Guinea 131, 183–4 eurobonds 43 eurodollars 35 FATCA 248–9, 251, 252–3, 258, 259, 261, 262, 266 Flash Crash 54 free speech 174–5 inequality 14, 15, 235, 237 and Jersey 61–2 limited liability companies 91 Magnitsky laws 178 and Nevis 50–2, 54–5, 57, 58 offshore wealth 47 and Russia 68–70 and St Kitts 156 shell companies 87–90, 92–7 and Swiss banks 24, 242–8 trusts 255–8, 261–6 and Ukraine 166, 186, 190, 192–3 visas 138 see also individual states; Miami; New York Uralkali 219, 220 Uzbekistan 97–8, 184 Vanish (yacht) 151–2 Vedomosti 238–9 Venezuela 91, 228, 270 Ver, Roger 154 Vimpelcom 98 Virchis, Andres 200 Vlasic, Mark 195 Vogliano, Ernest 247–8 Wall Street Journal 61–2 Warburg, Siegmund 36–7, 38–9, 45, 262 Washington Post 193 watches 238–9 Wealth-X 101–2 weapons smuggling 92, 148 Wegelin 248, 261 Weill, Sandy 219 whisky 240 White, Harry Dexter 28, 272 Windward Trading Limited 184 wine 239 Wisconsin 255 World Bank Doing Business 91–2 Equatorial Guinea 130 StAR initiative 195 Stolen Asset Recovery initiative 89 Wyoming 50, 95, 258 Xiao Jianhua 165 Yanukovich, Viktor 1, 6, 7, 8–9, 71, 75–7, 188 assets blocked 193 Cancer Institute visit 103–5 and Manafort 13 Mezhyhirya palace 1–3, 9 and Nevis 55, 59 Sukholuchya shooting lodge 3–4, 5, 8–9, 75–6 Yeltsin, Boris 65, 66, 67, 220 Young, Robert 61 Yukos 96 Zambia 238 Zhang, Lu 92 Zlochevsky, Mykola 170–2, 187–93, 275 Zucman, Gabriel 37–8, 46–7, 266 ALSO FROM PROFILE BOOKS Red Card: FIFA and the Fall of the Most Powerful Men in Sports Ken Bensinger The full story behind the FIFA’s headline-grabbing corruption scandal, soon to be a major film.

The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography by Stephen Fry

Alistair Cooke, back-to-the-land, Desert Island Discs, Etonian, gentrification, Isaac Newton, Live Aid, loadsamoney, pre–internet, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Sloane Ranger, South China Sea, Stephen Fry, The Wisdom of Crowds, University of East Anglia, Winter of Discontent

I had a wonderful, kind and clever partner in love and a wonderful, kind and clever partner in work. The nightmare of the forest seemed a long distance behind me. I cried and cried until at last I fell asleep. Comedy Enough time has passed for the 1980s to have taken on an agreed identity, colour, style and flavour. Sloane Rangers, big hair, Dire Straits, black smoked-glass tables, unstructured jackets, New Romantics, shoulder pads, nouvelle cuisine, Yuppies … we have all seen plenty of television programmes flashing images of all that past our eyes and insisting that this is what the decade meant. As it happens, resistant to cliché as I try to be, the eighties for me conformed almost exactly to every one of those rather shallow representations.

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Meanwhile, journalism was taking up more and more of my time. Columnist Britain’s magazine industry started to boom in the early to mid-eighties. Tatler, Harper’s & Queen and the newly revivified Vanity Fair, what you might call the Princess Di sector, fed the public appetite for information about the affairs of the Sloane Rangers, the stylings of their kitchens and country houses and the guest-lists of their parties. Vogue and Cosmopolitan rode high for the fashion-conscious and sexually sophisticated, City Limits and Time Out sold everywhere, and Nick Logan’s The Face dominated youth fashion and trendy style at a time when it was still trendy to use the word trendy.

Londongrad: From Russia With Cash; The Inside Story of the Oligarchs by Mark Hollingsworth, Stewart Lansley

"World Economic Forum" Davos, Berlin Wall, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Bob Geldof, Bullingdon Club, business intelligence, company town, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate governance, corporate raider, credit crunch, crony capitalism, Donald Trump, energy security, Etonian, F. W. de Klerk, Global Witness, income inequality, kremlinology, Larry Ellison, Londongrad, mass immigration, mega-rich, Mikhail Gorbachev, offshore financial centre, paper trading, plutocrats, Plutonomy: Buying Luxury, Explaining Global Imbalances, power law, rent-seeking, Ronald Reagan, Skype, Sloane Ranger

The article also expressed an apparently growing concern among parents about access to the best schools: ‘Private schools are becoming notoriously difficult to get into…The fight for places for one’s children has turned ugly and the sense of desperation is palpable’. And on London’s best homes: ‘In one street in W8, 80 per cent of properties were owned by non-Brits who were not paying full taxes.’ An elegant siren warning also came from Peter York, the co-author of The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook, first published in the 1980s: ‘All these Sloane grannies are defenestrated. They are being forced out of their former territories and they are starting to resent it. Local elites are supplanted by a global elite.’3 Equally outraged cries of anguish came from newspapers not normally associated with hostility to affluent tycoons.

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., Mayfair 153 Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington DC 224-5 Thunder (yacht) 265 Tiffany and Co. 177 Time magazine 68 Times, The 17, 331n, 334, 335, 365 Tincey, John 24 Titan International 294-5 Tokyo 17, 142 Tolstoy, Count Leo 167 Anna Karenina 168 Tolstoy, Count Nikolai 167 Tolyatinskoye Obozreniye 271 Tooth, Raymond 348 Torpoint, St George’s Hill, Weybridge 144 Tottenham Hotspur FC 211 Tramp, Jermyn Street, London 120 Trans-World Group (TWG) 322, 323, 324 Transneft 250 Tregubova, Elena 67-8, 360 Tales of a Kremlin Dagger 360 Trident Trust 212 Troika Dialog Asset Management 340 Troika restaurant, Primrose Hill, London 26 Trotsky, Leon 21, 282, 309 ‘truth squads’ 50 Tulloch, Alistair 227 Turner, Rodney 175-6 TV6 91 Ubon restaurant, Canary Wharf, London 26 UC (United Company) Rusal 340, 341 Ukhta, Komi Republic, Siberia 41, 42 Union of Right Forces 244 Unistream 350 United Arab Emirates 96 United Russia Party 173 United States Americans buy up houses in London 131 Deripaska banned from entering 16, 328-9 and the fleeing plutocrats 337 investor visa scheme 24 and a laissez-faire capitalist economy in Russia 337 policy towards Russia (1990s) 63 ‘robber barons’ 59 Unity Party 73 University College Hospital 286 University College London 299 URPO 286-7, 288, 289, 293 US Embassy, Ankara 338 US Senate Banking and Financial Services Committee 214 US State Department 328, 336 Usmanov, Alisher 194-5, 226, 277, 348, 358, 363, 364 Ust Llinsky pulp and paper plant 157 Uzbekistan 135 Supreme Court 195 Vainstock, Inna 250 Van Gogh, Vincent 201 Vanderbilt, Cornelius 58-9 Vanity Fair 180 Vassiliev, Andrei 260 Vassilievna, Nina 37 Vedomosti 271, 320 Vekselberg, Viktor 340 Vengrada Estates 212 Venice Biennale 189 Versace, Donatella 181 Vickery, Jo 192-3 Virgin Airlines 257 Virgin Money 122 Vladi-Moscow 168 Vodianova, Natalia 169, 180, 200 Vogue 200 Russian 174, 180 Volkov, Nikolai 77-8 Voloshin, Alexander 85-6, 231 Volvo 38 ‘voucher saving funds’ 34 VSMPO-Avisma 342 Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire 223 Wadley, Veronica 365 Wall Street financial scandals 17 Wall Street Journal 47 Wallis, Richard 127-8 Walpole, Sir Robert 225 Walpole Collection 225 Walsh, Nick Paton 268 Warren Mere House, Thursley, near Guildford, Surrey 110 Waterside Point, Battersea, London 2, 7 Watford, Mikhail ‘Micha’ 144 Webster, Assia 169 Webster, Stephen 169 Wechsler, William 64 Wentworth Park, Surrey 20, 144 West Bromwich Albion FC 319 Westbury Hotel, Mayfair 178 West LB 218 Westminster, Duke of 128, 157 Westminster Policy Partnership (later Public Policy Partnership) 226 Weybridge, Surrey 20, 143 White, Marco Pierre 104, 162 White Russians 22 Whitechapel, London 21 Wigan, James 356, 357 Wildcat Ridge, near Aspen, Colorado 129 Willis, Bruce 205 Wilson, Governor Pete 50 Winchester College 165 Windsor, Berkshire 143 Windsor, Duke and Duchess of 129 Windsor, Lord Freddie 181 Windsor, Lady Gabriella 171 Windsor Great Park 170-71 Winehouse, Amy 202 Winslet, Kate 144 Witanhurst, Highgate 358 Wolfe, Tom 173 Wolfensohn, James 223 Wood, John D 141 Workers’ Revolutionary Party 269 Workman, Robert 251 Workman, Chief Magistrate Timothy 250-51, 262, 269 World Bank 32, 223, 273 report (2004) 18-19 World Chechen Congress 269 World Economic Forum 49, 275, 330, 336 World Health Organization 208 World Trade Organization 330 www.Spletnik.ru (gossip website) 320 Wyndham, Henry 187 Yabloko 244 Yacht City 170 Yandarbiyev, Zelimkhan 268, 311 Yanukovich, Viktor 276 Yarichevsky, Boris 21 Yeltsin, Boris 46, 60, 165, 199, 337 1996 election campaign 49-51 bargain with the oligarchs 49-51, 66 and Berezovsky 40, 115 and the Chechnya conflict 53 economic reforms 23, 119 ends the Central Bank’s monopoly 47 the ‘family’ 52, 56 funeral 319 ill, often drunk and rarely in control 34-5 indecisive and capricious 34 introduction of free-market economy 32 mass voucher scheme 33 mentally and physically in decline 71 and ORT 40 potential successor to 64 and Putin 70-71, 72, 73, 289 re-election (1996) 83, 274 resignation of 73 Notes of a President 40 Yeltsin family 71, 123 York, Duke and Duchess of 142 York, Peter: The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook 346 York House, Kensington 199 Young, Charles 227 Young, Scott 110 Yukos oil company 46, 59, 350, 361, 362 assets frozen 233 asylum in Britain for executives 282 and Curtis’s funeral 11 enforced renationalization 233, 342 executives flee to UK 210-13, 305 and ExxonMobil 230 investigated by the state 239, 357 and ISC Global 237-8 and Khodorkovsky 48, 59, 209, 215, 218, 220, 221, 243 and Lord Gillford 227 and Lord Owen 226 market capitalization 48 and Menatep 5, 48, 215, 218 minority investors 6 Moscow headquarters 209 offices of Swiss company offices 5 offshore accounts 216 philanthropy 222-3 plans for 244-5 proposed huge dividend 245-6 raids of 210 restructuring 215 revenue from oil exports 217 and Rosneft 341 share offloading 218-19 share price 217-18, 222, 234 sued by companies 239-40 and Temerko 248, 249, 250 the Yukos curse 246-7, 251 Yumashev, Polina 56 Yumashev, Valentin 40, 52 Yushchenko, Viktor 276, 308 Yushenkov, Sergei 274 Zakaryan, Gagik 350 Zakayev, Akhmed 268-9, 282 Zampa Holdings Ltd 237 Zayed Al-Nahyan, Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifa bin 98, 99, 100, 102 Zhukov, Alexander 199 Zhukova, Daria (‘Dasha’) 159, 163, 180, 181, 189, 199-203, 320 Zilli menswear shop, New Bond Street 368 Zolotoi restaurant, Moscow 366 Zveri 205 Zyuganov, Gennady 49, 50, 274 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thank the scores of people who have agreed to be interviewed during the writing of this book.

Straight to Hell: True Tales of Deviance, Debauchery, and Billion-Dollar Deals by John Lefevre

airport security, Bear Stearns, blood diamond, buy and hold, colonial rule, credit crunch, fixed income, Goldman Sachs: Vampire Squid, high net worth, income inequality, jitney, junk bonds, lateral thinking, market clearing, Occupy movement, Sloane Ranger, the market place

Then we meet at a bar and drink. Networking As I said my good-byes in the London office, one of the traders pulled me aside. Artie had not only been a colleague but also a close friend during my time in the UK. Our shared interests include golf, drinking, and posh British chicks (specifically Sloane Rangers). We lived within blocks of each other in Chelsea and would spend several nights a week rotating between the Big Easy, the Admiral Codrington, and any number of regular spots on Walton Street, fending off the semipros and cougars who dominate that scene. “Listen, when you get to Hong Kong, I want to set you up with a friend of mine,” Artie said.

The Secret Club That Runs the World: Inside the Fraternity of Commodity Traders by Kate Kelly

"Hurricane Katrina" Superdome, Alan Greenspan, Bakken shale, bank run, Bear Stearns, business cycle, commodity super cycle, Credit Default Swap, diversification, fixed income, Gordon Gekko, index fund, light touch regulation, locking in a profit, London Interbank Offered Rate, Long Term Capital Management, margin call, oil-for-food scandal, paper trading, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, proprietary trading, risk tolerance, Ronald Reagan, side project, Silicon Valley, Sloane Ranger, sovereign wealth fund, supply-chain management, the market place

His returns in 2009 and 2010 had been strong, if not superlative, and BlueGold had established itself as a major player in London’s commodity-trading business. The fund, which now occupied a gracious office in the city’s pricey Sloane Square neighborhood, an area famous for a particular brand of British gentry known as the “Sloane Rangers,” was a fixture in the international financial press and managed billions of dollars in client money. Since its inception, the firm had returned more than five times its invested cash, or capital—all during a period in which the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index and the S&P had fallen hard. Noting the wild range of prices in the oil markets, “we are pleased with how we have navigated all of these energy markets—bullish, bearish, and last year’s trendless range bound market,” Andurand and Crema wrote in their January 2011 investor letter.

Frommer's London 2009 by Darwin Porter, Danforth Prince

airport security, Ascot racecourse, British Empire, double helix, East Village, Easter island, Edmond Halley, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, Isaac Newton, Maui Hawaii, Murano, Venice glass, New Urbanism, place-making, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Sloane Ranger, Stephen Hawking, sustainable-tourism, urban renewal, young professional

The area has always been a favorite of writers and artists, including Oscar Wilde (who was arrested here), George Eliot, James Whistler, J. M. W. Turner, Henry James, and Thomas Carlyle (whose former home can be visited). Mick Jagger and Margaret Thatcher (not together) have been more recent residents, and the late Princess Diana and her “Sloane Rangers” (a term used to describe posh women, derived from Chelsea’s Sloane Square) of the 1980s gave the area even more recognition. There are some swank hotels here and a scattering of modestly priced ones. The main drawback to Chelsea is inaccessibility. Except for Sloane Square, there’s a dearth of Tube stops, and unless you like to take a lot of buses or expensive taxis, you may find getting around a chore.

…

KNIGHTSBRIDGE & CHELSEA Knightsbridge (Tube: Knightsbridge), the home of Harrods, is the second-most-famous London retail district. (Oxford St. edges it out.) Nearby Sloane Street is chock-a-block with designer shops. Walk southwest on Brompton Road (toward the Victoria and Albert Museum) and you’ll find Cheval Place, lined with designer resale shops, and Beauchamp (Bee-cham) Place. It’s only a block long, but it’s very “Sloane Ranger” or “Sloanie” (as the Brits would say), featuring the kinds of shops where young British aristocrats buy their clothing for the “season.” If you walk farther along Brompton Road, you’ll connect to Brompton Cross, another hip area for designer shops made popular when Michelin House was rehabbed by Sir Terence Conran, becoming the Conran Shop.

Corduroy Mansions by Alexander McCall Smith

A Pattern Language, affirmative action, Alistair Cooke, banking crisis, carbon footprint, food miles, Higgs boson, Sloane Ranger

They forgot it when they were unkind to people because of where they came from, or because they were different, or because they had greasy skin. Her father was right. “She can’t help that, you know,” she pointed out. “She can’t help the way she talks, can she? None of us can.” Dee had found herself unable to argue with that, although she mumbled something about Sloane Rangers. But they both decided that they would not object to Caroline’s admission to the flat, which was just as well because Jenny announced when she came back into the room that Caroline would be moving in. “Why did she ask us to interview her if she was going to make up her mind by herself?” Jo later complained to Dee.

The Bank That Lived a Little: Barclays in the Age of the Very Free Market by Philip Augar

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", activist fund / activist shareholder / activist investor, Alan Greenspan, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bonfire of the Vanities, bonus culture, book value, break the buck, business logic, call centre, collateralized debt obligation, corporate governance, credit crunch, Credit Default Swap, credit default swaps / collateralized debt obligations, family office, financial deregulation, financial innovation, fixed income, foreign exchange controls, Glass-Steagall Act, high net worth, hiring and firing, index card, index fund, interest rate derivative, light touch regulation, loadsamoney, Long Term Capital Management, long term incentive plan, low interest rates, Martin Wolf, money market fund, moral hazard, Nick Leeson, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, old-boy network, out of africa, prediction markets, proprietary trading, quantitative easing, risk free rate, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, short selling, Sloane Ranger, Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits, sovereign wealth fund, too big to fail, vertical integration, wikimedia commons, yield curve

Millions of people became stock market investors for the first time, lured by the prospect of shares at a discount and television advertisements exhorting them to let their friends in on the story: ‘If you see Sid, tell him,’ ran the punchline of a famous commercial for British Gas shares. Global stock markets ripped up and down as the British and American governments’ deregulation of business and markets and reduced taxation of personal and corporate income allowed the animal spirits to run loose. It was the age of the yuppies and their Sloane Ranger girlfriends. They drank and they drove Flaming Ferraris. News bulletins showed agitated young men in fashionable striped shirts and braces yelling down their phones in dealing rooms the size of football fields. The action was gripping, especially at moments such as Black Monday, 19 October 1987, when after an unexpected rise in US interest rates from 8.75 to 9.75 per cent – with London paralysed after freak winds – markets fell by nearly a quarter in two days.

The London Compendium by Ed Glinert

1960s counterculture, anti-communist, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bob Geldof, British Empire, Brixton riot, Charles Babbage, Corn Laws, Dava Sobel, double entry bookkeeping, Edward Jenner, Edward Lloyd's coffeehouse, Exxon Valdez, gentrification, hiring and firing, invention of the telegraph, Isaac Newton, John Harrison: Longitude, John Snow's cholera map, Khartoum Gordon, Kickstarter, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Nick Leeson, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, price stability, Ronald Reagan, Sloane Ranger, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, spice trade, Suez crisis 1956, the market place, trade route, union organizing, V2 rocket

(i) The Cadogan Estate An estate of some 4,000 flats, 700 houses and 300 shops built in a flamboyant Flemish style with much red brick, the Cadogan Estate, which lies either side of Sloane Street, is owned by the Cadogan family, hence the use of the name for several streets, and is home to several of Britain’s most celebrated stores, particularly Harrods. In 1975 Peter York coined the name ‘Sloane Ranger’ in the magazine Harpers and Queen to describe the kind of wealthy local socialite who in the 1920s would have been called a ‘Bright Young Thing’ and in the 1960s an ‘International Jet-setter’, whose embodiment was the late Princess of Wales. Brompton Road Harrods, Nos. 87–135 London’s most prestigious, and Europe’s largest, department store, its motto omnia, omnibus, ubique (‘everything for everyone everywhere’), opened as a small grocery store, run by Henry Harrod in Stepney, in 1835, moved to Eastcheap in the City, and then to Belgravia in 1849.

Frommer's England 2011: With Wales by Darwin Porter, Danforth Prince

airport security, Ascot racecourse, British Empire, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Babbage, Columbine, congestion charging, country house hotel, double helix, Edmond Halley, gentrification, George Santayana, haute couture, high-speed rail, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Murano, Venice glass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ronald Reagan, Skype, Sloane Ranger, spinning jenny, Stephen Hawking, sustainable-tourism, the market place, tontine, University of East Anglia, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, young professional

It begins at Sloane Square, where flower sellers hustle their flamboyant blooms year-round. The area has been a favorite of writers and artists, including such names as Oscar Wilde, George Eliot, James Whistler, J. M. W. Turner, Henry James, and Thomas Carlyle. Mick Jagger and Margaret Thatcher have been more recent residents, and the late Princess Diana and the “Sloane Rangers” of the 1980s gave it even more fame. Kensington This Royal Borough lies west of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park and is traversed by two of London’s major shopping streets, Kensington High Street and Kensington Church Street. Since 1689, when asthmatic William III fled Whitehall Palace for Nottingham House (where the air was fresher), the district has enjoyed royal associations.

England by David Else

active transport: walking or cycling, Albert Einstein, back-to-the-land, Berlin Wall, Bletchley Park, Boris Johnson, British Empire, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, colonial rule, Columbine, company town, congestion charging, country house hotel, Crossrail, David Attenborough, David Brooks, Edward Jenner, Etonian, food miles, gentrification, glass ceiling, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Kickstarter, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, Nelson Mandela, new economy, New Urbanism, out of africa, period drama, place-making, retail therapy, sceptred isle, Skype, Sloane Ranger, South of Market, San Francisco, Stephen Hawking, the market place, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, unbiased observer, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Winter of Discontent

Soho is undoubtedly the heart of bar culture, with enough variety to cater to all tastes. Camden’s great for grungy boozers and rock kids, although it’s facing stiff competition on the Bohemian-cool front from the venues around Hoxton and Shoreditch. Now that Princes William and Harry have hit their stride, the Sloane Ranger scene has been reborn in exclusive venues in South Ken(sington), although the ‘Turbo Sloanes’ now count megarich commoners among their numbers. Us mere mortals will find plenty of pub-crawl potential in places like Clerkenwell, Islington, Southwark, Notting Hill, Earl’s Court…hell, it’s just not that difficult.

France (Lonely Planet, 8th Edition) by Nicola Williams

active transport: walking or cycling, back-to-the-land, bike sharing, British Empire, car-free, carbon footprint, centre right, Charles Lindbergh, Columbine, company town, double helix, flag carrier, gentrification, Guggenheim Bilbao, haute couture, haute cuisine, Henri Poincaré, Herbert Marcuse, high-speed rail, Honoré de Balzac, illegal immigration, industrial robot, information trail, Jacquard loom, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Kickstarter, Louis Blériot, Louis Pasteur, low cost airline, Mahatma Gandhi, means of production, Murano, Venice glass, pension reform, post-work, QWERTY keyboard, ride hailing / ride sharing, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Skype, Sloane Ranger, Suez canal 1869, supervolcano, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, urban renewal, urban sprawl, V2 rocket

* * * Return to beginning of chapter LIFESTYLE Be a fly on the wall in the 5th-floor bourgeois apartment of Monsieur et Madame Tout le Monde and you’ll see them dunking croissants in bowls of café au lait for breakfast, buying a baguette every day from the bakery (Monsieur nibbles the top off on his way home) and recycling nothing bar a few glass bottles. They go to the flicks once a month, work 35 hours a week and view the web-radio production company their 24-year-old son set up and heads in Paris with a mix of pride, amusement and scepticism. Their 20-year-old daughter, who is so BCBG darling (BCBG – bon chic, bon genre – a Sloane Ranger in non-Parisian speak), is a student – France’s overcrowded state-run universities are free and open to anyone who passes the baccalauréat, although Sarkozy had a stab at changing this in 2007 by giving universities the autonomy to select students and seek outside funding. * * * Sixty Million Frenchmen Can’t be Wrong: What Makes the French so French ask Jean-Benoît Nadeau and Julie Barlow in their witty, well-written and at times downright comical musings on one of Europe’s most contradictory nationalities

Great Britain by David Else, Fionn Davenport

active transport: walking or cycling, Albert Einstein, Beeching cuts, Boris Johnson, British Empire, call centre, car-free, carbon footprint, clean water, colonial rule, Columbine, congestion charging, country house hotel, credit crunch, Crossrail, David Attenborough, Etonian, food miles, gentrification, glass ceiling, global village, haute cuisine, high-speed rail, illegal immigration, Isaac Newton, James Watt: steam engine, Kickstarter, land reform, Livingstone, I presume, Mahatma Gandhi, mass immigration, mega-rich, negative equity, new economy, North Ronaldsay sheep, North Sea oil, Northern Rock, offshore financial centre, period drama, place-making, retail therapy, Skype, Sloane Ranger, South of Market, San Francisco, Stephen Hawking, the market place, three-masted sailing ship, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, upwardly mobile, urban planning, urban renewal, urban sprawl, Winter of Discontent

Soho is undoubtedly the heart of bar culture, with enough variety to cater to all tastes. Camden’s great for grungy boozers and rock kids, although it’s facing stiff competition on the Bohemian-cool front from the venues around Hoxton and Shoreditch. Now that Princes William and Harry have hit their stride, the Sloane Ranger scene has been reborn in exclusive venues in South Ken(sington), although the ‘Turbo Sloanes’ now count mega-rich commoners among their numbers. The rest of us mere mortals will find plenty of pub-crawl potential in places like Islington, Clerkenwell, Southwark, Notting Hill, Earl’s Court…hell, it’s just not that difficult.