Who’s who? How the..?

Media Guardian has just published “Who’s who in the media: the definitive guide to the most powerful movers and shakers in the industry.” It’s a whopping £19.99, but will no doubt be filling the Christmas stockings of the friends and family of a number of those that are in it.

Flicking through its pages as I did before being told that “this is a bookshop, not a library” I glimpsed many of the names you’d expect…Grade, Dyke, Paxman, Dimbleby, Humphries. Each individual was clearly invited to complete an entry form with lots of personal and professional information. What’s interesting is that many of the big name entries simply stick to the basic information…they’re clearly too important to bother about letting us know what they get up to in their spare time.

No, the longest entries come from those people who were obviously thrilled to have been invited…who will, no doubt, be the ones buying multiple copies from Amazon (because it’s only £13.19 there) to pass on to their friends.

One of the longest entries comes from some bloke called Mark Westaby of the Portfolio Group. His name rings a bell with us…can’t think why.

Among the gems of insight into the private world of Westaby is this…

"I'm really a frustrated academic (I was offered various PhDs) but there's not enough money in university research!"

..and this…

"My main interests are academic books on psychology, neuroscience, econometrics, statistics and mathematical modelling (I know, I'm a sad case!)"

…you said it, not us…

Mark lists other interests as watching Midsomer Murders, listening to very loud dance music alone in his car, and "pottering" around his 17th century Yorkshire holiday cottage (thatched, of course). He loves being with his family, "but I'm not sure it counts as relaxing"…funny that, they said the same thing.

Have we underestimated Mr Westaby? Or has Media Guardian overestimated him