12 AUGUST 2000, page 27

City And Suburban

If you're not in business for fun or profit, you've caught the Cherie culture CHRISTOPHER FILDES R obert Townsend had the answer to the personnel department. His anti-corporate......

I'm On The Bandwagon

MY host at the Savoy Grill (or Dealmakers' Arms) rather pointedly ordered a bottle of mineral water. 'Do you find it difficult,' he asked, `to drink at lunch-time, these days?'......

Parting Shot

DEAR Mervyn (writes John Vickers, the Bank of England's chief economist), here's what you might like to say this week when You present the Inflation Report: We have been......

Custom And Practice

'OH, good,' said the bank chairman. 'I've got lots of customers they can have.' The build- ing societies, I had told him, were eager to spread their wings and lend to small......

With The Woolwich

THE customers that Barclays seems to want are with the Woolwich. Word of a deal had got into the market and forced Barclays to declare its ardour. It wants to offer £5 '/2......