Channel 4 chairman Luke Johnson's private equity firm Risk Capital Partners is understood to be backing David Roche's management buyout of Borders' UK and Ireland business. While the deal has not been finalised, a decision on the chain's future is believed to be imminent.

Johnson is understood to be keen to retain Borders...

A recurring theme in Ronnie, Ronnie Wood's autobiography (Macmillan, October) is that he keeps getting mistaken for his fellow Rolling Stone, guitarist Keith Richards. Blues legend Muddy Waters made this error, as did Chuck Berry. Fans, Wood notes wryly, keep doing it to this day.

At Gatwick on the way to Budapest to interview Wood...

Tony Blair has recruited the US lawyer Robert Barnett (pictured left) to broker a deal for his memoirs. Barnett is best known for securing a reported $12m for Bill Clinton's autobiography - but estimates for Blair's book set the price tag at a record-breaking £8m, for world and full serial rights.

The advance will...

I see Ken Follett coming down the road from my window seat at the Dog and Duck pub in Soho. He is a few minutes late for our interview and is hurrying in a slightly comical half-running, half-walking trot.

Yet when he arrives he doesn't look at all flustered: his white bouffant hairstyle is perfectly coiffed, his elegant suit seems...