THE ANDREW DAVIDSON INTERVIEW - REUBEN SINGH
He created a wildly successful chain of girly shops before taking his A-levels, became the UK's youngest self-made millionaire and was taken up by Tony Blair when just 22.
It's arranged: Reuben Singh will meet me at London's Hilton hotel, Park Lane. You can't miss him, say his office, he'll be in his yellow Bentley, personalised number plate. And, sure enough, there he is, standing outside the hotel in the spring sunshine beside the brightest car this side of a lemon on wheels.
'Do you like it?' asks Singh, instantly chummy. 'I got it last week It's the only one of its type in the world!'
And you can believe it. It's gleamy new, pounds 270,000-worth of eye-popping status symbol with walnut dashboard, black leather seats edged in yellow piping and a Sikh Khandra symbol dangling from the mirror. Singh himself is in designer Sikh mode: black trousers, black boots, black rollneck, black turban and bushy black beard tucked into his sweater. It's all rather surreal.