A truce of sorts in the war of words between HSBC analyst Victor Flores and Peter Hambro Mining. The London-listed Russian goldminer headed by Etonian Peter Hambro took offence to an HSBC research note which questioned the digger's projected output after Flores's reading of its reserves classification, which used both Russian and international standards.

The note - slashing PHM's shares target price from 700p to 200p - sent the stock into a 40% three-day slide despite Hambro's people harrumphing that Flores was comparing "apples with pineapples".

Flores now admits "our mistakes" but resolutely defends his point that there are "unexplained" mismatches which need to be clarified by "more data and better science." More to the point, the HSBC man still thinks PHM's are only worth 200p.

* Is Sainsbury's going to move its headquarters from Holborn to King's Cross?

It turns out the chain has yet to sign the contract with Argent, the developer at King's Cross. It's understood there have been funding problems with the project.

Sainsbury's take is there nothing untoward going on and it will sign when the building is finished. Shouldn't that be, if the building is finished?

Barclays sheikh in spotlight

Now the Arabs are running Barclays, can City Spy assume the Financial Services Authority has completed its “fit and proper” checks on Sheikh Mansour?

The scion of the Abu Dhabi ruling family, who now owns a chunk of Barclays, is clearly beyond reproach as he has already been allowed to take control of Manchester City, but the form of his family having interests in major international banks is not.

His father Sheikh Zayed, late ruler of Abu Dhabi, lost a fortune trying to keep afloat the fraud-ridden, money-laundering “Bank of Conmen and Cocaine International”, before BCCI was closed down, wiping out the deposits of thousands of Brits and their local councils in 1990.

Don't underestimate Stelios

City Spy may have been wrong last week to report suggestions by analysts that Stelios is losing the plot in his bid to destabilise the easyJet board over expansion (or not) of the airline — he may just be suffering from amnesia.

The carrier's founder says he is attacking easyJet's directors over their taking dozens of new Airbus aircraft in coming years. “The real issue is the Airbus contract,” Stelios tells the FT.

“I am keen to focus the debate on how much they cost and how they are to be paid. At the heart of the question is are we a growth company or a mature company? I think it is a mature company.”

Stelios knows the Airbus contract better than most. He was chairman when an order for 240 new aircraft was signed. He forced Airbus into a discount of perhaps 50%-plus off the list price, playing it off against a furious Boeing.

At the time he said it would be “an offence” not to take this up, vowing to spend “a lot of my time over the next couple of weeks talking to our shareholders to explain the benefits of this deal”.

So simple for Prince...before he turned Citi into a pumpkin

A flashback to 2006 — Charles “Chuck” Prince, then boss of Citigroup, describing how he ran the bank: “Our job is to set a tone at the top to incent people to do the right thing and to set up safety nets to catch people who make mistakes or do the wrong thing and correct those as quickly as possible. And it is working. It is working.”

Fast-forward to November 2008: Citi is saved from collapse by a US Government bailout, including a guarantee for $306 billion of troubled mortgages and other assets.

Some safety net, Chuck.

* Another stereotype is well and truly punctured: Glamour.com — the website of the Condé Nast beauty and style magazine — recently arranged a fashion promotion with the new Westfield shopping centre in Shepherd's Bush, offering the winner £2500 of vouchers to spend.

One lucky reader was duly found — and there were plans to take some promotional photos to adorn the magazine. So imagine Glamour's surprise when the winner declared she wasn't going to buy clothes or beauty products. Instead she wanted to spend the lot in the Apple store.

A Ruddy hard question: what would Keynes do?

Tony Rudd, former journalist and stockbroker, and father of Roland, the City PR adviser, may be advanced in years but he still maintains a keen interest in what is going on, sending out an email weekly newsletter to friends and contacts.

He's holding an essay competition on “what Keynes would advise today if he were alive”. Entry is open to anybody under the age of 25 who has read or is reading Economics. First prize is £1000, with the winner and three runners-up invited to dinner at Brooks's.

“There we will drink the health of John Maynard Keynes himself,” says Tony. Entries must be in by the end of the year. Details at www.the-weekly.net.

* What does Business Secretary Lord Mandelson make of the increase in the top rate tax to 45% for earnings over £150,000? “New Labour is intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich,” Mandelson once said. But will Mandelson's filthy rich friends be as relaxed about the tax hike? Or will they move to sunnier climes? And will they still invite him to come and stay?

* Lay-off gave way to downsize. Now downsize has been made redundant. “We have to right-size our workforce and we are proactively doing that,” simpers Gerard Kleisterlee, chief executive of electronics giant Philips.

* Property woes. Traditionally home to lots of ads for desirable piles up for sale in the shires, the latest edition of Country Life has just 10 on offer. And one of them is for a house on the market for just £595,000.

* Everyone wants a piece of Obama. Anglesey Sea Salt Company suppies the salt to the San Francisco confectioner that makes the president-elect's favourite “smoked sea salt caramel milk chocolates” (ugh). “It's wonderful to be associated with the most famous man in the world,” gushed Anglesey, scenting a promotional opportunity.

City Spy has a question for Anglesey: do you think Obama knows who you are?