Businessman Gerald Ratner yesterday returned to a conference where he infamously described one of his products as crap and admitted it brought back " hideous memories".

Mr Ratner opened his heart to 2,000 company directors and revealed the full extent of the disastrous consequences of his gaffe.

His comments in 1991 about his jewellery chain selling a "crap" sherry decanter for £4.95 and joking that a prawn sandwich would last longer than a set of 99p earrings bought from one of his stores backfired spectacularly.

£500 million was wiped off the value of the company, shops had to close and Mr Ratner resigned. Speaking again at the annual conference of the Institute of Directors at the Royal Albert Hall Mr Ratner admitted he had been an "idiot".

Describing his return to the stage he said: "It has brought back the most hideous memories. Everything was going so swimmingly with the company at the time. An analyst asked me what could go wrong and I said I did not really know. The next day I came here and everything went wrong."

Mr Ratner said a lot of people turned against him or blamed the press for his downfall but he went on: "The only person I could blame for putting my foot in my mouth in such a ridiculous way was me. I still have not got over it."

The businessman said he had no idea anything was wrong as he delivered his comments which were meant to be light-hearted coming at the end of the day-long conference.

He was slated by the media and other jewellers and agreed to pose for a photo for a national newspaper pointing a gun at his head in a bid to move on from the controversy.

"That was how not to deal with a PR disaster."

Mr Ratner said he was recovering from the bad publicity and hoped that people would now focus on his online jewellery business.

But he could not resist courting more controversy when he said that one of his friends had told him he was a nicer person after his business demise.

"I would rather be not nice and rich than nice and poor," he said to laughter from many in the audience.

Mr Ratner attracted the loudest applause of the day from business leaders who seemed more than willing to forgive him for his gaffe.