Alistair Darling says the Treasury will abandon its forecast that the economy will start growing again in the second half of 2009. The Chancellor made the prediction in the Pre-Budget Report just a month ago. But no one outside the Treasury believed it then. Did even the Chancellor's advisers think in December that the recession would be over by the end of summer? Or was it a case of political expediency as Darling stood up at the despatch box?

* Sir Philip Green is on the blower. “What's the temperature there?” he asks. “It's 85 here,” he says, laughing madly.

Sky man is a thorn for Rose

Sky News' Dermot Murnaghan's interview with Marks & Spencer boss Sir Stuart Rose managed to extract a confession from the wily retailer that he had indeed made mistakes. Murnaghan started out as a financial journalist. At least Rose was polite — when Murnaghan interviewed Brent Walker boss George Walker on Channel 4 in the 1980s, the former professional boxer threatened to “stick one on him”.

* So Rose has finally woken up to what has been obvious all along — that the rampant expansion of M&S Simply Foods has led to the cannibalisation of sales in some of its larger traditional stores. This has caused an extra headache because M&S has relied on customers popping in for food to boost its clothes sales — they set out to buy groceries, and browse the fashion rails.

* Who's this making a comeback in The Spectator? Science writer-turned-banker Matt Ridley. The former Northern Rock chairman pens a piece in celebration of Charles Darwin...

An Olympic-sized spinner

Wanted: top corporate PR adviser, with good contacts in the sporting world. Attractive salary, plus international travel. Ability to speak French essential and other languages a bonus. The International Olympic Committee, based in Lausanne, is looking for a new communications director. City Spy hears that Olympic bosses close to IOC supremo Jacques Rogge are keen to recruit a Briton — not least because the next Olympic Games will be in London in 2012. The most recent incumbent was Giselle Davies, daughter of sports commentator Barry.

* Now City headhunters Spencer Stuart are helping to conduct the search for her replacement. With redundancies in the air at top PR firms, there should be no shortage of interest.

* ARE bookmakers getting desperate? After all, the freezing weather has curtailed racing. William Hill was offering odds ahead of today's Bank of England decision on interest rates. So a half-point cut was odds on at 4/5, a hold or increase in rates was 16-1, etc. A William Hill spokesman said: “It looks a good bet that the rate will fall — but it is difficult to predict by just how much.” Surely, that sounds like a good reason not to have a bet?

It's open season on bankers

Comedian Bill Bailey is on an extended run at the Gielgud Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue. One of the biggest laughs he got all evening was a savage attack on Lehman and gloating about the plight of fallen “hedge fund managers”. The comic paraphrased the theme tune from US sitcom Friends, singing:
“So no one told you life was gonna be this way
Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A.
It's like you're always stuck in second gear
When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year.”
Then, after each line of the chorus “I'll be there for you”, Bailey added an extra word with great gusto “Not!”
The audience, admittedly few of whom appeared to be City people that evening, applauded wildly.

* Bailey's stand-up act also included a sustained attack on Swiss bank UBS and its historic involvement in Nazi gold. There wasn't much reason for having a go at UBS — Bailey explained he'd once done a corporate gig for the Swiss giant — but as far as his whooping fans were concerned, who cares? It's open season on bankers.

The Madoff ringtone, the Madoff rap...

IF you haven't got your Bernard Madoff fix from the swathes of merchandising — umbrellas, caps,
T-shirts and the like — up for sale on eBay, now you can hear his voice wherever you go.
New York website Cityfile has created a Bernie ringtone, featuring parts of a speech the great trickster gave in 2007 set to the theme music from the horror flick Hallowe'en.
However, the site is going against Madoff's money-grabbing philosophy and giving it away for free.

* Meanwhile, a rapper has come up with a tribute to Madoff, titled Welcome to Ponzi Town. Get in the beat and chant along:

“Earn 1% a month, that's off the hizzo
You were all my bizzos
I'm a stick-up geezer, yo!
You thought I had vol on lockdown?
Welcome, to Ponzi-town
Pigs get slaughtered, clown
I mailed you this ghetto statement
You caught the vapours
You wired more paper
Every day open the Journal
And read about my little caper
Dynastic wealth's now eating Chuck E. Cheese
Hamptons summer? Truffles? Please
Only if it's you driving the Jitney
Ya might wanna trim down that check to the Whitney...
Your daughter rides horses? Sorry bro
Heli to work? That's over fo sho
Yeah, I wiled out – up in some foundations
Hey disadvantaged, congratulations
You just learned a scam better than the two & twenty hustle
Park Ave lawyers will get me out of this tussle
An S&P basket with puts and buys, right
Yah, theoretically that might
Work if you're kinda retarded
But please don't get me started
I'm a market maker
A wealth faker
I've made investing in these banks look a hell of a lot safer
G'z up, Dow's down
Dropping bows on portfolios
If ya gotta one dollar bill, throw your hands up
F*** it, you can throw 'em up anyway
It's on me”