REMEMBER wine? Not the anaesthetic of office parties, but Wine with a capital W like, say,
first-growth clarets with swaggering names (Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Margaux, Haut-Brion, Mouton-Rothschild) and vertiginous prices?
The wine you couldn't go wrong with when the Footsie and every other index was in meltdown — the one on which you paid no capital gains tax when it doubled in value after a year or two under bond?
Yup, that wine. Drink deep: City Spy hears that at least one venerable City merchant, sensing that some of its clients might want to, er, rebalance their stocks (i.e. flog them, in the light of absent bonus/redundancy/Madoff exposure), has sent out word explaining that no, it is not prepared to buy the stuff back.

* JUST what does William Hague do for his £25,000-£30,000 a year as a member of Terra Firma's “political council”?

* IS National Insurance just one massive Ponzi scheme? Workers cough up the tax every month to get a payout on retirement, but the Government takes the money, spends it on what it likes, safe in the knowledge it can attract new investors later on to pay out the
old ones.

* WOULD you expect the boss of BP to know anything about the oil industry? At his state-of-the-industry presentation in July (when oil was peaking at nearly $150 a barrel), chief executive Tony Hayward presented a chart indicating that oil would track between $120 a barrel and $140 a barrel over the next three years. “We believe the era of cheap energy is over,” he declared. “We see an increasing likelihood that oil and gas prices will be stronger for longer.” For the record, crude looks set to end 2008 at a
five-year low below $40 a barrel.

* THAT Lord Turner, he's City Spy's hero. At a recent breakfast meeting, the Financial Services Authority chairman was praised by Tomas Spurny, head of giant Czech finance group PPF. Spurny said: “I met him in 1995 walking through a foot of snow and mud in the middle of Russia when we were with McKinsey advising Gazprom. Their headquarters were pretty basic but it didn't bother him. I was very impressed such a man as him would go to those lengths.”

* BLOW for the Shard of Glass? Transport for London is the anchor tenant for the new tower, but just how much space it will require is uncertain. TfL commissioner Peter Hendy has written to staff to say the body is conducting a review of its office needs in order to reduce costs...

* NICK Bubb of Pali International is a beacon of hope. Er, not. He writes to clients: “If you thought the current level of discounting on the High Street is unprecedented, and that the rising number of retailing bankruptcies is unparalleled, then just you wait until January.” Happy New Year!