It's not been the happiest of years at EMI, where staff at the music company and their private-equity bosses at Terra Firma still regard each other as aliens. Apparently, the Terra Firma people insist on coming to work in full City regalia of suit and tie, whereas the
music-biz ones slob around in jeans and open-neck shirts. The clash of cultures is not exactly helping mesh the two tribes. It was suggested to Guy Hands that the atmosphere at EMI might be a little improved if his Terra Firma people at least went to work tieless in a attempt to meet halfway. The suggestion was rejected by Hands, er, out of hand: “That's just the way we do things.”

* To the Café Pushkin in Moscow, where Lord Mandelson and Oleg Deripaska famously dined before the Corfu Yachtgate controversy. Now the table where the odd couple surreptitiously broke bread together has become the must-have spot in the favourite haunt of Oligarchs, supermodels and visiting British businessmen. “Everyone asks to be seated at the exact table,” City Spy is told. “One British banker even offered waiters a £200 tip to be allowed to sit there. Often waiters just pretend any free table is the place they sat, just to shut them up.”

* City Spy's item about an ancient credit crunch has created interest. Reader Richard Croker of law firm Cameron McKenna writes: “The credit crisis seems to have been ended by a war or two. The Romans went to war with Mithridates and won back the Greek East, looted treasures and forced the natives to pay the costs of the conflict. When the army led by Sulla got back, a year of vicious civil war with other factions who had seized power in his absence followed before a measure of stability (or dictatorship if you prefer) was achieved.” Asks Croker: “What price General Brown to lead a British revenge attack on the US?”

* Who is acting for Channel 4 in its negotiations with BBC Worldwide and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, in its quest for state help? Step forward Nathalie Schwartz, a lawyer and new business director on the C4 board. Schwartz was behind the doomed plans for Channel 4 Radio. Before that, she was strategy director for the GWR/Capital Radio union to create GCap — after which shares in the merged company slumped and it was taken over by rival Global Radio. Hmmm.

* Apart from small suppliers like Welsh hill farmers, who else do you suppose so-called celebrity chef Tom Aikens knocked when his business went into administration? He owed £500,000 — yes, that's
right, half a million quid — to the Revenue & Customs...

* How about doing a Madoff this holiday? A Ponzi crawl is a pub crawl that adds a new person to buy a round at each location. Each person is promised they will get free drinks at all future bars if they do this. Obviously, whoever joins the Ponzi crawl last gets screwed.