The old gag about failing football teams is that they look good on paper, but useless on grass. From the Financial Services Authority report into the collapse of Royal Bank of Scotland: "The board included members with relevant experience and skills and successful track records in other fields. On paper, it looked adequately strong."

* So who were those brilliant ten non-executive directors on the board of RBS in 2007-8? Special credit must go to Archie Hunter, former Scottish senior partner at KPMG, who chaired the audit committee. Other notable figures included Peter Sutherland, still chairman of Goldman Sachs International, and Sir Steve Robson, former second permanent secretary at HM Treasury. Yes, RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin had the City and Whitehall establishment signed up...

* Further proof for those, like Labour bigwig Harriet Harman, who think the problem with banks is that there were too few women on the board? RBS had just one woman on its 17-strong board. That was Janis Kong. Who she? Kong was a former executive chairman of Heathrow Airport Limited, chairman of Heathrow Express and a non-executive director of British Airports Authority. She was also a non-exec director of Kingfisher plc and Portmeirion Group plc at the time and a chairman of Forum for the Future and a member of the board of Visit Britain. And her banking experience was what, exactly?

* Shareholders singularly failed to tackle Sir Fred Goodwin at RBS. Should we be surprised when one of the bank's other non-exec directors was Bob Scott, chairman of the RBS remuneration committee? Previously, he was chairman of the Association of British Insurers, which is meant to speak up fearlessly for shareholders...

It's a Little miracle for M&S with X Factor TV ad

It's just like a Christmas miracle: the final ad in the commercial break before the X Factor result on Sunday night is from Marks & Spencer, featuring the talent show's contestants, including a lingering shot of the female singers in Little Mix. Two minutes or so later, host Dermot O'Leary announces the winners are... Little Mix. M&S must be thrilled - except for the fact that the ratings for the final were down somewhere between three to four million compared to a year ago. Time to bring back Simon Cowell, then - although even he may struggle to restore the X Factor magic.

Citi's reverse ferret on forecast

As the ground shakes to the stampede of City forecasters rushing to predict recession, the contrast with what many were saying at the start of this year provides plenty of ammunition for sceptics of the dismal science. According to the Treasury's records, the biggest volte-face comes from Citigroup which was predicting bullish 2.5% UK growth in January and calling on the Bank of England to hike rates. Now it is forecasting, ahem, a rather more meagre 0.9% growth in 2011 and reckons the Bank will end up printing £500 billion. Standard Chartered, which made waves this week by predicting recession in 2012, plumped for a more realistic 1.4%. The gold star goes to the Centre for Economics and Business Research, which was nearest the market with a gloomy 1.1% forecast this year. The consensus now is 0.9%. Well done, chaps.

* "It became pretty clear after I signed up that this company was in much worse shape than I thought," new Premier Foods boss Mike Clarke whines to the Financial Times. Two things: 1) That's just what he's bound to say isn't it? He's not likely to arrive and admit that the job is a piece of cake deserving of a lower salary. 2) If it really is worse than he thought, that doesn't say much for his due diligence now, does it?

* Rory Sutherland, vice-chairman of WPP's Ogilvy One and a big figure in advertising in every sense, shows trade magazine Campaign around his office at home. The most notable feature is that he has no fewer than three identical Sky TV remote controls on the sofa. "Duplication is essential if you have children," he explains, referring to his ten-year-old twins. "Although it is mandatory to pretend you like babies, I frankly found them conversationally quite limited. I much prefer my children now when they are ten and you can argue with them and when they swear and tell you jokes. You can also inculcuate in them your own unattractive right-wing prejudices. 'The good thing about this car park, Dad, is that there aren't too many bloody disabled spaces,' my daughter said in Sainsbury's the other day. I was so proud I nearly cried."

BA's future in tea leaves

British Airways is facing a renewed battle with Virgin Atlantic in its attempt to buy bmi and last week axed plans to employ an extra 400 staff thanks to the Government's decision to increase air passenger duty on flights. So what's its press office busy doing? Writing about tea. "British Airways is flying the flag for British tea by establishing a new business partnership that will see British tea supplier Twinings become its exclusive global tea supplier across all flights and airport lounges," says the flag carrier. Extra titbits include the fact "tea is Britain's most popular drink with over 165,000,000 cups being drunk in the UK every single day" and Kate Thornton, head of product and service, saying: "Tea is very much a signature beverage for our customers." So now we know.

* With barely ten days of trading left until the end of December, there is a high chance that the FTSE-100 index will close down on the year - after ending 2010 at the 5900 mark. But will the Footsie manage to make it above 2009 levels? The index ended December 2009 at 5413. The fact that the market has made next to no progress in two years says it all...