Harrods

London's most famous department store - pictured. Harrods was established in 1834 in London’s East End when founder Charles Harrod set up a wholesale grocery with a special interest in tea, which he moved to Knightsbridge to escape the filth. Today, the store is owned by Mohamed al-Fayed who bought it for £615MM in 1985. Separately that year, Fayed was involved in the cash-for-questions scandal having offered the Conservative MPs Neil Hamilton and Tim Smith money for asking questions in Parliament, in what some observers saw as a sting intended to incriminate ministers in a government that had deemed him to be unsavoury. Fayed, despite also owning a London football club and other interests in the UK has begged for British citizenship- only to be endlessly rejected. His son Dodi dated Princess Diana and died in the Paris car crash ten years ago August.