Stringfellow laps up pension

You're only as old as the woman you feel, according to the cliche. But selfstyled "king of clubs" Peter Stringfellow is clearly feeling a touch closer to retirement than his 26-year-old popstar girlfriend Lucy Carr.

"Stringy", 62, has taken another big chunk of money out of his lapdancing business to put into his pension pot. The £520,000 payment came on top of the near-£1 million he set aside a year earlier. That was his first pension provision for more than two decades. More is expected to follow, hitting the bottom line at his nightclubs operation.

Due mostly to this sensible attitude to ageing, but not helped by a sharp increase in rent at the upmarket Stringfellows club in Covent Garden, the silver-maned entrepreneur's businesses fell just short of breakeven in the year to June 30 2002, registering a loss of £2774. In the previous 18 months, it lost £187,212 after Stringfellow's pension payment.

Cliff Silver, the finance director who, unusually, owns the vast majority of shares in Stringfellow's operations, said: "He's just doing what the Government tells us to do - saving up for retirement."

The trading environment had been tough, with the lack of big City deals meaning fewer bonuses and less corporate entertainment. But Silver said: "We're still doing OK."

The club earns its money from sales on the door, drinks, food and the flat fee it charges dancers.