Larry Ellison claims the European Commission investigation into his proposed takeover of Sun Microsystems is costing him $100m a month. Coincidentally that is exactly how much Ellison spends on scented candles to keep his fleet of fighter aircraft smelling fragrant. The Oracle boss accepted that European regulators have a job to do but said the longer it takes the more money Sun was losing. Competition Commissioner 'Steelie' Neelie Kroes announced a phase-two investigation into the $7.4bn deal earlier this month. She is particularly concerned by the fate of open source database MySQL which is seen as a future competitor to Oracle's core business