Sir Richard Branson is hopping mad about regulations coming down the pike courtesy of the UK Parliament, and he's not sitting around bitching about it idly. The issue at hand is the Air Passenger Duty (APD), scheduled to rise by an ungodly 113 percent by November 2010, with the next phased increase due in November of this year. It means, for example, that the APD tax on a flight from Heathrow to Dubai will go up from £40 to £60; the tax on a Premium Economy ticket from Gatwick to Barbados will go up from £80 to £150 and the tax on an Upper Class flight from Heathrow to Sydney will increase from £80 to £170. In his own words, Sir Branson trashed the measure:

As president and co-founder of Paul Frank Industries, Ryan Heuser has been with the brand since day one. In 1995, Heuser befriended the brand's namesake while working as the head of public relations for Mossimo men. The California native knew a good thing when he saw it, and he immediately invested his efforts in Frank's project -- now worth well over $40 million. The brand recently made a split with Paul Frank the man, leaving the enterprise in the hands of Heuser and CEO John Oswald. Heuser opens up about the split, business these days, and going green.

Photographer Stephane Gautronneau shot photos of his girlfriend, model Denni Parkinson, nude-straddling a kite-surfing Virgin Group prez Richard Branson. Kudos to Parkinson's camera sense, while I suppose one can't fault Branson for staying focused on the task at hand. One more exhibition after the jump.

Bitch-slapped by the Atlantic on one side of his islands and caressed by the Caribbean on the other, Richard Branson is moving his base of operations from Necker Island to Moskito Island next door. Because of the success of Necker, Branson started his own South African resort and game preserve, and now, he's preparing to launch series of ubermarket boutique hotels across the Americas. It was 1978, and in order to impress a woman (now his wife, Joan) Branson answered a high-flying ad to visit the British Virgin Islands, stay in an upper-class villa, and tour the Caribbean by helicopter with a view to buying his very own island -- a perfect come-on for the young Virgin King. At the time, he thought the Virgins might make a nice chill-out destination for the rock stars on his record label. So he and Joan boarded a British Airlines flight bound for Antigua; yes, it galled him, but it was the only airline serving the Caribbean from Britain without stopovers at the time, and even then he wanted to change that.

The founder and president of the Virgin Group -- with ownership of some 200 companies in over 30 countries and interests in travel, tourism, and resorts on a few continents -- tells BlackBook about his humble beginnings, having luck on his side, hoping that airline hero Sully may join the team, and his obsession with sticky puddings.

How did you get your start in business?
I left school and started Student Magazine from out of a call box. It turned out to be the best decision I ever made. I found out that a lot of school was a waste of time for me. The magazine was my education. Then I started on the record side, and it turned out to be more fun. And that took over.

Right now, you’re in the air. What kind of phone are you using to make this call?
We’re basically using wifi, and by next month, we’ll be the only airline in the world with full Internet. You can use your Blackberry up here. Business people can spend their hours working, and kids will have access to the net.

Jeff Gramm, owner of Cayo Espanto -- a private island off the coast of Belize -- reveals how you go about buying your own island, what to do once you’ve picked up three, and the new destination you need to hit up in the Bahamas.

What do you do? I manage and own the Cayo Espanto in Belize, and my US reservations office is in North Carolina. I also live in Atlanta, so I do marketing, PR, and oversee the property

How did you come to own an island? I bought the island raw, a swampy little island in the mid 1990s, and built it from scratch. It had one coconut tree, and now it has 600. I had a mail-order company, and that's how I could afford an island. I was so lucky to have the design team that did everything from the Four Seasons to the Beverly Hills Hotel and my little island -- and from that point on until 1998, all I did was work on it.

Kerry Simon, owner of Simon (Palms Place at the Palms Hotel and Casino), Cat House (Luxor), and Simon LA (Sofitel Hotel in LA). He dishes on rock star aspirations, rock star labels, and the food in between.

Point of Origin: I thought I was going to be a guitar player and got a job at a pizza place to earn money to buy equipment. I eventually found out that I really enjoyed cooking. I really didn’t know where to go, so I started learning about culinary institutes and going to cooking school. Even when I was doing that, I didn’t know exactly where it would take me.