Would even Blair have put Felix Dennis in the Lords?

This is not only an authorised but a commissioned biography. Felix Dennis, the tiny, depraved, manipulative media mogul, was hardly going to let a free hand choose the adjectives that defined him. The author recalls his initial fright at being contacted: “Of course I’d be delighted to speak to Felix,” I said, my voice an octave higher than normal.’

And so Fergus Byrne, of Dorset’s Marshland Vale magazine, was Dennis’s chosen one, flown to Mustique so they could sit in his paradisal grounds together, wondering at Dennis’s publishing achievements (from MacUser to lads’ mag Maxim), discussing his business technique (‘“I fucking hate accountants,” he shouted’) and remembering the laughs along the way, such as the ‘hysterical’ bitchfight between his Korean ‘companion’ and his Chinese girlfriend — on Christmas Day, no less!

This is a repellent portrait of an unrepentant individual. Its tone is mainly puerile admiration for Dennis’s exploits, combined with strained claims of virtue. ‘When it came to philanthropy, he didn’t differentiate between prostitutes and lovers. He was loyal and generous, regardless of anyone’s position in society.’ Every few pages this multimillionaire is called generous. It never seems to occur to the author that generosity is giving away what you can’t afford. Towards the end of his life Dennis did do good, planting a million broadleaf trees in England, and giving laptops to 12,000 local children in the Grenadines and St Vincent — although the latter was realised using funds from the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Dennis’s father, a grocer, went to Australia when Felix was two and never came back; his mother Dorothy sounds rather magnificent, training to be an accountant at night school, for which Felix never forgave her. He was expelled from Northwood grammar and dropped out of Harrow School of Art.