FORGET the Bullingdon Club. Forget too, these troubled times. Eton College has started its own club for those keen to get on, credit crunch or not: The Stockbroking Society. David Cameron and Boris Johnson's old school has already been able to draw some of the most high-profile names in the City to address the society members and give them the edge on their peers. The former RBS head and defeated would-be boss of HBOS, Sir George Matthewson, has already given them his thoughts, as have executives from Goldman Sachs.

* CITY PR agency Tulchan has appointed its first independent chairman. He's Robert Sutton, the former senior partner of Macfarlanes. Ex-Brunswick partner and Tulchan founder Andrew Grant is keen to ensure Tulchan is not run as a personal fiefdom. Which PR agency fits into that category, City Spy wonders?

* OH DEAR. Writing in the Financial Times about his share portfolio, private investor Nick Louth has prompted this reaction from an angry reader, Martin McKeand: “I am astonished by your comment in Saturday's FT that the good news is that stocks such as Landkom are trading well'. This share has declined steadily over the year from £1.03 down to 12.5p today. Great if you managed to buy at its recent even lower price of 9.5p — if you did so, you are indeed a genius. Pray tell me the secret of your success and what other similar bargains you are buying. At least I managed to get out at 50p, having lost only half of my investment.”

* AIR Partner is notoriously secretive. Officially, the quoted private-jet charter group has never arranged flights for Her Majesty or the Prime Minister, had nothing to do with the hire of Boeing 737s for Sir Philip Green's birthday celebrations and cannot say whether Posh and Becks have been valued clients. But it has now gone too far, says Pirc, the activist shareholder group. Pirc is calling for a revolt at next week's annual meeting over Air Partner's remuneration policy, which includes a “unique” non-financial performance bonus, a long-term incentive plan with no conditions attached, and “discretionary” payments to directors.

Rough ride on Virgin Trains

* ON the same day Virgin Trains reveals half-year profits jumped 17% to £30.8 million, the train operator says it is “reminding” passengers just how dreadful its services will be over Christmas and New Year. Virgin, of course, gets compensation from Network Rail for any lost revenues as a result of work on the tracks — hence, presumably, the boost in profits. But what do customers get in compensation for unreliable timetabling and hours of delays? Nothing, of course, apart from full prices and overloaded carriages. That's customer service for you.

* AMONG the useful assets directors at oil explorer Sibir bought with company money from its cash-strapped Russian majority shareholders: The Sovietsky Hotel in Moscow. Built on the orders of Joseph Stalin in the 1950s, it played host to most of the main Western leaders during the Cold War. But not what you'd call a core investment for an oil company.

Stars in their eyes at Soc Gen

Societe Générale, most famous for its former trader Jerome Kerviel's €5 billion losses, has unveiled a staff-focused publicity drive aimed at repairing its battered image.

Those who want to see specially-selected bank workers eulogising about their jobs can watch a series of 13 half-hour films of them at work over
two days.

“For this campaign we wanted to create a personal and sincere atmosphere to get as close to those who work in the bank as possible,” said the ad agency director. Just what City Spy has always wanted.

There are no points for guessing which former employee doesn't feature in the films.

Meanwhile, Kerviel is making his own splash. Le Figaro reports that the rogue trader par excellence is in talks with director Antoine de Caunes about a film based on his story.

* WHO wants to be a billionaire? Donald Trump is facing lean times. Sumner Redstone is having to do a fire sale of his stake in a video-game maker to repay half of a $1.6 billion debt burden. German tycoon Adolf Merckle is refused a bailout by the state of Baden-Württemberg over his huge losses on share-price bets on Volkswagen. In India, the Tata family's Tata Motors is appealing to the Indian public for cash and will pay 11% annual interest for fixed deposits. And all this from one day's business news. At this rate, there will soon be no billionaires left.

It's another Slating for Sir Fred, the worst banker'

ONLINE magazine Slate asks the question: who's the world's worst banker? It trips past the obvious US candidates — Dick Fuld, Chuck Prince, Vikram Pandit and the rest — to settle on Scotland's very own Sir Fred Goodwin.

Of Royal Bank of Scotland, writer Daniel Gross says: “The bank, which this summer was Britain's largest, is now neither Royal, nor Scottish nor much of a bank. RBS's slogan is Make It Happen. A review of the record shows that Goodwin indeed made it happen. He aced every requirement for a hubristic CEO.”

Slate hails Sir Fred for carrying off mergers and calling them growth, doing deals at the top of the market, having poor credit controls, building self-indulgent new headquarters, telling shareholders you don't need more capital when you do, and finally dumping problems on fellow citizens by messing things up so badly the bank has to be nationalised.

* BBC workers are up in arms at their canteen's decision not to pass on in full the cut in VAT from 17.5% to 15%. If they choose to spend £3 or more, a VAT reduction will be applied. But below three quid, there will be no discount.

It seems the canteen recently moved to “silver service” (i.e. no copper coins because they are too expensive to deal with) and prices were cut, so management sees this as a way of recouping some of that cost.

But most items and portions in the canteen are priced at below £3, including a cup of tea or even a large cappuccino, so most of the time the reductions will not be made.

* NICE to see that Citigroup is using American taxpayers' money well. An Ipsos poll, sponsored by Citi's Thank You Network (yes, it's really called that), reveals that 95% of Americans are happiest with a gift that costs nothing at all — gratitude. As one worker at a rival bank noted: “That's lucky, because that's all they'll get for bailing Citi out.”

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