The appointment of Stephen Hester as chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland marks a long-awaited return to banking for the former Credit Suisse First Boston and Abbey National man after four years as head of British Land. Under Hester, shares in the City office development giant rose from below 1000p to a peak of 1722p in December 2006.

However, the shares have since plummeted, dropping back below 1000p as property values tanked. In February, with the shares at 962p, Hester declared: “The worst is behind us.” Eight months later, the shares are worth 670p and property values continue to slide...

* Yeah, right. “Over a number of years we have diversified the group's income streams and last year also saw us benefit from our focus on credit quality and risk management” — Sir Fred Goodwin's chief executive's review in the RBS 2007 annual report.

* And who's advising bombed-out Royal Bank of Scotland on its attempted City fundraising? Those beacons of financial rectitude Merrill Lynch and UBS.

Something for the weekend

Natwest has been busy advertising how its High Street branches are open on Saturdays — “Sat West — that's one extra day we can help you get on top of your finances,” says the strapline.
Nat West's parent company, Royal Bank of Scotland, has spent the past few Saturdays (and Sundays) desperately getting on top of its finances and staving off going bust...

* Sir Fred Goodwin received his knighthood for services to banking. Shouldn't it now be returned?

* Proof as to just how low the standing of bankers has sunk. Directorbank, a boardroom headhunting agency, spoke to 430 directors who between them sit on more than 900 boards. They singled out 132 chairmen they had worked with and rated outstanding. Of these 132, just one currently chairs a bank. Nine received more than one nomination. None of these elite nine runs a bank.

History lesson from 1929 crash

The humiliation of it all. In John Kenneth Galbraith's classic, The Great Crash 1929, he recalls how bankers were made “to suffer all available indignities...Such was the fate of the bankers. For the next decade they were fair game for congressional committees, courts, the press and comedians”.

When one academic, Professor Irving Fisher of Yale, leaped to their defence, blaming the share selling “mob psychology”, the editor of The Commercial and Financial Chronicle remarked: “The learned professor is wrong — the mob' didn't sell. It got sold out.”

* Community leaders did their best to lighten the mood. Appearing before a meeting of motion picture exhibitors, mayor James J Walker appealed to them to “show pictures which will reinstate courage and hope in the hearts of the people.” Boris, your time is now.

Dig deep for Lucian's mitz

Lucian Grainge, boss of Britain's biggest record label Universal Records and tipped to run the company in the US, is receiving one of the business's highest honours next month — the prestigious Music Industry Trusts Award, known as the “Mits”. Wags have dubbed it Lucian's “barmitzvah”. Geddit?

* Not everyone is taken in by the mass hysteria stalking the world over the credit crunch. While commentators such as the BBC's Business Editor Robert Peston have been raising their profile with round the clock appearances on news bulletins and relentless blogging about how we're all doomed, one BBC viewer has told him to pull himself together in an admirable display of British stiff upper lip. One of Peston's latest blogs discusses the “day of reckoning” following sharp falls on Wall Street and Tokyo. But one reader takes issue with Peston's penchant for apocalyptic vocabulary: “...sharp and nerve straining...disease....illness....anxiety....regulators have time for breath...anxiety-inducing...remove words like these [they only exist in YOUR head] and your copy will become less overblown and more readable. Stop being a drama queen.” Quite right too.

Escape from Lehman to the Beeb...

Anthony Fry could be forgiven for feeling a little sore a year ago when he quit Lehman Brothers after a power struggle. Now, of course, Fry looks savvy to have got out before the meltdown.

Further proof he has landed on his feet? He has been appointed a BBC trustee, for which he will pick up £35,230 a year for a “two-days per week commitment”. Hardly big money for an investment banker, but in these austere times, the BBC is in no danger of going bust — and City Spy suspects there may be a few perks such as the tennis at Wimbledon or tickets to the Proms, coming his way.

* When Black Friday comes
I'll stand down by the door
And catch the grey men when they
Dive from the fourteenth floor
When Black Friday comes
I'll collect everything I'm owed
And before my friends find out
I'll be on the road
When Black Friday falls you
know it's got to be
Don't let it fall on me.

That's how US band Steely Dan put it on an album song back in 1975. Fans always argue over the band's obscure lyrics, but a popular view is that it was about Friday 24 September 1869. On that day, a ploy to corner the gold market in the US left many investors broke after the government released $4 million of bullion into the market, driving down the price. It seems appropriate, somehow.

* A clue to the future direction of Guardian Media Group — the newspaper firm is appointing a new non-executive director with a digital background to replace Paul Myners, who has resigned to go into Government. GMG has recruited Judy Gibbons, a partner at venture firm Accel Partners. She helped to set up Microsoft's MSN business in the UK, previously worked for Apple and Hewlett Packard and is a former board member of phone firm O2. So her media experience seems to cover most important areas. Er, except newspapers.

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