Eminent Conran has a nickname

What do Sir Terence Conran, “poet laureate of the chemical generation (© The Face)” Irvine Welsh, Oasis songster Noel Gallagher and Arsenal fan/author Nick Hornby have in common?

It’s not that they all like football – Hornby supports boring, boring Arsenal.

It isn’t that they have all terrorised the young competitors on Junior Masterchef – only one of them has done that.

The link is that they are all among the 25 most influential people in the UK, as revealed by London’s most influential daily newspaper, the Evening Standard.

Other members of this gang of 25 include Marks & Spencer design director Brian Godbold, or as the ES puts it “the man in charge of Middle England couture”.

It’s interesting to note that, at 64, Conran is the elder statesman of this crew, and, claims the ES, is genially nicknamed by colleagues and employees as “the fat man”.

But our source at Conran HQ says: “That’s bollocks. We do not call him the fat man, we call him Terence.”

Anyway, the whole article and the ES’s criteria for compiling the list is hugely doubtful. After all, John Major is in there.