Last summer I was having lunch in a restaurant in London's West End with two friends who work in the legal profession. A client — they are partners in a practice — noticed the familiar faces and came in.
We were introduced and for reasons which will become obvious, I was just "Christopher," the client assuming I, too, was a solicitor.
The client was Mike Ashley, the owner of Newcastle United who does not speak to the media — knowingly, anyway. For an hour Ashley spoke about Newcastle with a passion that would have surprised those in the Toon Army who consider him little more than the godfather of the cockney mafia running the club.