In brief: Mussolini’s motor sells at auction for £550k

A 1935 Pescara Spyder once owned by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini (pictured) has been sold for £550,000, a record price for the classic sportscar... Joe Lewis, the Bahamas-based billionaire who took a $1bn hit as a result of the Bear Stearns collapse, as reported here yesterday, has reassured Tottenham Hotspur that he will not be forced to sell the club...Sir Elton John will play a rare solo concert at New York's Radio City Music Hall next month to raise money for Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton; tickets for 'Elton and Hillary: One Night Only' start from $125... Sir Alan Sugar, about to star in a new series of The Apprentice, is fed up with the BBC portraying him as 'Mr Nasty' and says "all the humour ends up on the cutting room floor"... Jerome Kerviel, the rogue trader who lost €4.9bn, has told examining magistrates that his managers at Societe Generale watched while he made unauthorised bets on stock markets; his bail application is being heard in Paris today... A pickled fish by Damien Hirst that was hung in a Yorkshire chip-shop for nearly a decade is expected to fetch up to £150,000 when sold at auction later this year... Nicolas Sarkozy will present yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur with the Legion d'Honneur at the Royal Naval College in Greenwich during his state visit next week: the French President will also visit Arsenal’s Emirates stadium with Gordon Brown, while the two men’s wives lunch together... Veteran BBC presenter Peter Sissons has launched a scathing attack on the BBC's current crop of 'autocuties', saying many have not "earned the right" to do the job...