Butler boom

Europe might be mired in a debt crisis, but there's a growing global demand for a proper English butlers.

The reason? In part, an increasing market in China, where the newly wealthy want well-trained servants to manage their personal affairs. Bloomberg reports on Tuesday, among other signs of a growing demand for upscale domestic help in China, that the Guild of Professional English Butlers has trained 20 percent more butlers this year than in 2010, in large part to satisfy the needs of Chinese and Russian clients.

“We are getting lots of enquiries from these Chinese who are sitting on piles of money," Robert Watson, head of the butler's guild, told Bloomberg. "They are discovering that if you spend $8 million on a villa with marble flooring, you need someone to come along who knows what they are doing.”