Another day, another round of delays and frustration for anyone trying to cross Knightsbridge by car or bus. It is extraordinary that this key corner of London's traffic scheme has been brought to a halt by property developer Candy & Candy as it turns One Hyde Park into the capital's most luxurious apartments.

Or is it? The Candy brothers, Nick and Chris, insist they are not to blame. They are actually paying to improve the junction - there will be a righthand turn from Sloane Street to Hyde Park Corner, not possible at present, and pedestrian crossings, again not currently there. (At the Westminster Planning Committee meeting that approved the plans, one councillor commented that before the proposed new system, there were only two types of pedestrian in Knightsbridge: "the quick and the dead".)

So whose fault is the chaos? It's City Spy's old friend TfL. The Candy boys said they could do the work in three weeks by shutting down the corner and diverting traffic through Hyde Park. That would have been painful but over quickly, unlike the current mess which is expected to last...seven months.

* Oliver Hartwich, chief economist at the Policy Exchange think-tank, is emigrating to Australia. "I hope he'll remember to take the yoghurt with him, so as to be able to avail himself of some culture," says Tim Worstall of rival body the Adam Smith Institute. How very discourteous.

* Malcom Walker likes to say that when he returned to Iceland, the frozen-food retailer he founded, "I stopped selling cigarettes, gas, flowers, newspapers, fresh fish, sandwiches, My Little Pony, fresh bread, sewing kits, pet food." Now Walker wants to do the same at Woolworths. Hmmm. Malcolm, have you been in a Woolies recently? The list of items you will stop will be very long indeed. In fact, Malcolm, what will you want to sell?

* Who is the richest man in the world? Carlos Slim of Mexico? Warren Buffett in America? Increasingly, the chat among the yachts in Monaco harbour and their Russian owners is that one Vladimir Putin has that honour...

Dragons' Deb deserves a toast for her moral stance

In this week's episode, she quizzed the creators of toaster bags (you use them to make sandwiches in a toaster, apparently), who have sold 10 million of their products worldwide.

It quickly turned out they'd run into financial difficulties in 2006, liquidated that business, leaving debts of £200,000 and started again - hence the search for new funding.

This did not sit comfortably with Meaden, who made it plain what she thought of their behaviour and wondered how the creditors felt. Meaden withdrew, as did fellow dragons Peter Jones and Duncan Bannatyne.

But the revelation and Meaden's remarks did not deter James Caan and Theo Paphitis. They had no qualms about backing people who had acted in such a fashion and had a right old scrap to pump in money in return for equity, with Caan emerging the winner.

Shame on them.

Brought to book over Boris

* Developer Lend Lease has infuriated the people of Stockport, in Greater Manchester, by abandoning plans to build £500 million worth of shops, houses and a cinema and leisure centre in the town, blaming "deteriorating and unfavourable conditions". Meanwhile, in London, Lend Lease is contracted to build the 2012 Olympic Village.

Merrill freeze may be big chill

"I wonder what the implications really are, and am concerned that the freeze itself is just a marker which firm executives are putting down to signal that there are much tougher times ahead," says the anonymous staffer.

"My own view is that things are probably a lot worse than they seem, and that this 20-week hiring freeze is just the tip of the iceberg. We are clearly in a situation where any form of cost saving matters - recruitment costs, existing headcount costs, travel costs, salary raises, year-end bonus payouts, and maybe even a dividend cut. And the 20-week hiring freeze? Somehow I doubt that it will stick at 20 weeks."

You have been warned.

* So what on earth does Labour peer Lord Cunningham do for his £36,000-a-year consultancy from the City of London Corporation? As Dr Jack Cunningham MP, his interests were frequently nuclear - his constituency included Sellafield, and his nickname at Westminster was Nuclear Jack. Now he's in the Lords, the City pays him £230 an hour for three hours' advice a week.

* Lordy, those accountants know how to have a good time. While the rest of us have headed for the beaches they've been holding "summer schools" ... on how to spot companies in trouble. Accountancy Age reports the biggest firms have been running courses aimed at educating junior staff on the warning signs.

PricewaterhouseCoopers' Assurance Summer School is targeting employees with five years' experience who may not have worked through the previous recession in the early 1990s. "We're looking at covenant compliance and bank facilities closely ... And we're looking at cash flows and management's views on prospects for the future," said Andrew Ratcliffe of PwC. Meanwhile, the rest of us are splashing around and eating ice creams.