It has taken a while — after all, it has only been about a century since the upper classes reluctantly agreed that trade is not unutterably vulgar — but next week the 450-year-old school will endorse its first commercial venture.
Angus Graham-Campbell, a senior master at Eton, and Nick Afka Thomas, 27, former pupil and actor, have joined forces to create The Eton Game, a hybrid between Monopoly and The Game of Life, which goes on sale next week at £49.99.
Players have to race through a day in the life of an Eton schoolboy, taking in a sick note from your dame (matron), a ticking-off from your beak (teacher) and life as a praeposter (prefect). But, crucially, you have to avoid picking up Faux Pas cards which, as well as deducting points, contain horrors such as “Oh dear, your mother’s hat at the Fourth of June” (parents’ day).
Graham-Campbell said: “It’s about becoming the ‘It boy’ of Eton, in the academic, social, sporting and artistic spheres. It’s the first time that Eton College has allowed its name to go on a product like this. The provost and headmaster were the first to test it.”
Of the City boys, Cazenove’s David Mayhew apparently has potential to be favourite.
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More of an It boy than Prince William? Teacher wouldn’t tell.
Pricey Premier leaves ABN in a bit of a pickle
FEW can remember a more peculiar City row than the one that broke out over the float price of Premier Foods, the owner of Branston Pickle and Smash.
While it was obvious to many, including The Sunday Times Judgment Day columists, that the float price for Premier was absurdly high, the private-equity seller Hicks Muse went to great lengths to try to silence the debate over the company’s value — the firm even wanted our columnists investigated.
After such a fuss, Prufrock was surprised to see a note, out last week, from ABN Amro, Premier’s house broker, that revised its forecast for the company downward by 2.5%. Julian Hardwick, lead analyst, told Prufrock: “It seems our original forecast was slightly ambitious.”
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But ABN stops short of admitting it completely overhyped the price. Instead, the blame lies with a “muted” bounce in tea and beverages, and a poor potato harvest.
F1 team’s power short cut
THE technicians charged with improving the aerodynamics of the BMW Williams Formula One cars started work in their new wind tunnel at the Williams base in Wantage, Oxfordshire, four months ago. It is one of the most advanced systems in the world, pushing nine tonnes of static air to speeds of more than 175mph in 30 seconds. But this takes a stunning amount of energy — the equivalent of 3,020 electric heaters. Local power suppliers, struggling to meet Williams’s demands and fielding complaints from residents whose lights kept dimming, were unimpressed. Now Williams has responded as only those with an annual budget of £300m can — it has built its own sub-power station.