Toilet roll panic, the new Hugo Boss and where the super-rich live

Planet Business: Stocking up in more ways than one

Image of the week: Ghost in the mall

In central Milan, shoppers have been unusually hard to spot of late. In the deserted Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II luxury mall, a man in a ghost outfit wanders about to see if he might find some Prada bargains or possibly to capture the attention of photographers. Milan's landmark Duomo cathedral, which had been shut for a week following northern Italy's coronavirus outbreak, reopened on Monday with a quota system for visitors, but the few tourists circling the area were said to be outnumbered by the journalists who had flocked there to report on how few tourists there were. The economy of the city, Italy's centre for finance and fashion among other industries, has been the hardest hit in Europe to date as a result of Covid-19, with a jump in cases prompting the Italian government to suspend sports events and order the closure of schools and universities.

In numbers: Bogged down

4

Maximum number of toilet roll packs that Australian supermarket chain Woolworths is allowing shoppers to purchase at any one time, in response to an outbreak of loo roll panic-buying. How many rolls per pack was not specified.

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40

Share of Australia's toilet roll supply imported from coronavirus-struck China, meaning there is still plenty left to go round, or there would be if people weren't stockpiling them.

98

Percentage of Japan’s toilet roll stock that is made domestically, though that hasn’t stopped Japanese shop shelves from being similarly emptied of paper.

Getting to know: Joe Lycett

"Hugo Boss (born Joe Harry Lycett, July 5th, 1988) is a British comedian." So begins the freshly and amusingly edited Wikipedia page for Joe Lycett, a British comedian. Angered by the German luxury fashion house's heavy-handed approach to trademark enforcement (a Welsh craft brewery called Boss Brewing was one of its targets), Lycett changed his name by deed poll to Hugo Boss, updated his Twitter bio as "the comedian formerly known as Joe Lycett" and did valiant work publicising how much it costs a small business to deal with Hugo Boss's cease and desist letters. The company eventually released a statement defending its trademark protection practices, though its equaliser was scored via an opening line of pure deadpan corporate-speak: "We welcome the comedian formerly known as Joe Lycett as a member of the Hugo Boss family."

The list: Where the super-rich live

On this planet, there are 513,244 ultra-high net worth individuals, meaning they have assets of more than $30 million (€27 million), according to property consultants Knight Frank. But where, apart from their coronavirus bunkers, do these money stockpilers all hang out?

1 The US. Home to a staggering 240,757 super-rich people by Knight Frank's definition – less than 1 per cent of the US population. It extended its "lead" last year.

2 China. There are a mere 61,587 individuals who have reached this level of wealth in the world's second largest economy.

3 Germany. The fourth largest economy comes third in its quantity of ultra-rich citizens, which clock in at 23,078.

4 France. Vive la 18,776 fabulously rich French – possibly not the same ones who were out protesting on the streets all through the winter.

5 Japan. Home to 17,013 ultra-rich at the time of writing.