Simple Minds singer Jim Kerr has done exceptionally well out of his brief sojourn in Ireland, pocketing almost £2 million from the sale of Killiney House earlier this week. He bought the two-acre property in 1992 for around £800,000 and lived there for a time with his wife, Patsy Kensit. He was part of the early wave of rock stars and artists who moved to Killiney in the early 1990s and made the area hip and every expensive to buy into. In fact, he spent very little time in the big period house facing the sea, and less time after he split up with Kensit. He is now based in Scotland. Killiney House was sold on Tuesday for £2.75 million - a nice little tax-free profit of £1.9 million, or putting it another way, almost £272,000 for every year Mr Kerr owned it.

Beats working!