City Spy: Wanted: Queen needs boss for Crown Estate

The Commissioners, led by Sir Stuart Hampson, are quietly searching for a replacement to Roger Bright, the 58-year-old former civil servant, who has ably minded the Royal shop since 1999 - and who last year earned £203,000 plus a bonus of £78,000. Bright fancies a portfolio career in the private sector even though his contract is not up until 2013. His current job normally comes with a knighthood at the end, and has always been placed into the safest pair of civil service hands possible.

But City Spy understands the thick pile of CVs currently being examined by the commissioners includes private sector candidates. Is nothing sacred?

* Spotted: A tieless, relaxed, smiling Tony Hayward, mobile stuck to his ear, strolling leisurely along the length of Jermyn Street at 3.15pm yesterday. The former BP boss was just a stone's throw from the oil giant's St James's office but it looks like the life of a multi-tasking non-executive director is suiting him a whole lot more...

* "Estates Gazette is pleased to announce our event on Distressed Property." We know what you mean, folks, but perhaps you could have chosen your words better?

* A public relations blunder from Asda, which is trying to promote its "Living Lettuces", greens that "are not grown in traditional fields but instead are grown hydroponically, using state of the art technology". Sadly, the "Fresh for Longer" lettuce that arrived here looked like it died several days ago. It was more brown than green. Available in stores nationwide.

Curtains for Kirstie - and Mary too?

Bad news for Mary Portas, telly's "queen of shops" appointed by David Cameron to save the nation's ailing and failing High Streets.

A poll conducted by Property Week magazine found that 84% of its readers considered her appointment to be "ridiculous".

The property industry is not impressed by the "queen" having taken herself off on holiday for the rest of July, just as some big names (Habitat, Moben, Thorntons and HMV) are in serious trouble or closing down.

Cameron once asked another telly presenter, Kirstie Allsopp, to find solutions to the housing
crisis. She suggested we all fit heavy curtains to save on our heating bills.

City Spy fears Mary may not do any better.

* Much confusion over the BSkyB takeover yesterday. Traders panicked when they read on their Bloomberg screens "News Corporation withdraws proposed BSkyB undertakings", mistakenly thinking this meant the takeover had fallen through, hence the brief collapse in the broadcaster's shares to just 669p. "We were ringing round, frantically trying to work out what that meant," says one dealer. Even Bloomberg's Twitter feed - which has over 275,000 followers - reported that News Corp had "withdraw[n] its proposed BSkyB offer". The tweet was corrected and later deleted. The perils of instant media?

Ominous signs from eurozone

Seasoned euro-crisis watchers should be reaching for the tin hats if the latest comments from German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble on Italy are anything to go by. Asked whether Italy is the European Union's next bailout candidate, he confidently claimed: "I don't think so at all... Italy is on the right path." Unfortunately, given the sorry track record of rescues over the past year, an endorsement from a leading European minister is the equivalent of the chairman's dreaded vote of confidence in the manager of a struggling football team. Bad things quickly follow. Here's Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the Eurogroup of EU finance ministers six days before Ireland's bailout: "Ireland has not requested emergency funding." And here's "mystic" Juncker again, less than two weeks before the Portuguese asked for 78 billion: "Nothing suggests Portugal will request a bailout any time soon." On this form, how long can it be before Italy sticks out the begging bowl?

* Howard Archer of IHS Global Insight gets in touch after City Spy noted how the top economist has been making the odd spelling mistake as well as maths slip-ups. "Well spotted. I have just changed to Windows 2007 from 2003 and I have not got to grips with the spellchecker yet," he says. "That is my excuse and I am sticking to it. Just wondering whether I can blame the dodgy analysis on that as well." City Spy hasn't spotted anything dodgy about your analysis, Howard, but will stay vigilant...