A catastrophe for the noble firm of Ernst & Young, a bulwark of what has been known as the Big Four in the accountancy profession. It has been relegated to fifth in rankings of listed company auditors. The latest quarterly figures from Hemscott reveal that E&Y once again trails in fourth behind PwC, KPMG and Deloitte in the ranking of auditors of companies in either the FTSE 100 or FTSE 250.

But the rankings also reveal that E&Y's total number of audit clients among listed companies has fallen by 11 in the last three months to 285 - 31 behind third-placed Deloitte but more importantly one behind the 286 audit clients on the books of Grant Thornton. Oh the shame of it.

Bad behaviour from Goldman

YOU can't take a bunch of Goldman Sachs bankers anywhere. A group accompanied by their families descended on the Hyde Park Tennis Club the other weekend, led by star trader Sam Wisnia. It wasn't that the bankers were loading up rather loudly on their bottles of Bud that had the locals choking on their champagne and smoked salmon but the fact that one of kids in tow proceeded to ride his bike up and down the bowls lawn. Even when the club manager remonstrated with them, the Goldman bankers continued to giggle like college kids.

* The backlash against bankers continues. In March, Soho House in New York decided not to renew the memberships of some of its banking members to “return the club to its creative roots”. Now a ban on suits has been imposed in a bid to get the remaining ones out.

* Good to see shareholder democracy in action at road haulier Stobart Group. An emergency general meeting has just been held to approve the £14 million takeover of Carlisle Airport. The meeting was necessary because the sellers were Stobart's chief operating officer William Stobart and chairman Andrew Tinkler. Convenient then that the meeting was held at 10am on Saturday in Guernsey.

* “The US economy will enter hyperinflation' approaching the levels in Zimbabwe because the Federal Reserve will be reluctant to raise interest rates, investor Marc Faber said,” reports the Bloomberg News service. Let's hope Faber, a bear of some note, is very badly wrong on this one. Zimbabwe's inflation rate touched 231 million per cent last year.

* Gordon Ramsay gives a fascinating interview to The Sunday Times in which he admits his catering empire has been close to financial ruin — with a £7.2 million tax bill and £10 million of loans with Royal Bank Of Scotland. Ramsay, who even had to sell off his Ferrari, insists his company is now back on an even keel. City Spy always like to hear about his flagship Gordon Ramsay restaurant in Royal Hospital Road which, the chef says, is making £80,000 a month. The restaurant is only open to the public for five days a week, which means theoretically it makes close to £4000 a day. “No 44-seater [restaurant] makes that kind of money,” claims Ramsay. That's quite a double-edged boast as far as potential customers are concerned…

* Ebay shoppers can snap up a new treat: Mark Madoff's business cards are available for just $4.99. But the contact details don't offer a quick way for Ponzi victims to get their own back on Bernard Madoff's son: calling the number printed on Mark's card results in an automated message that suggests you “try again later”.

* Overheard in Canary Wharf, one banker telling another: “I'm not asking her to marry me until pre-nups are binding.”

Who's taken all his clothes off, Charlie?

Media mogul and Planet 24 TV founder Charlie Parsons, whose partner is Lord (Waheed) Alli, recounts a recent visit to Dans Le Noir, the Parisian-inspired restaurant in Clerkenwell where the waiters are blind and you eat totally and absolutely in the dark. “The idea is to experience what it might be like to be blind,” explains Parsons. “It is totally black, everything is different including the taste of the food. It is, I find myself thinking, a little too earnest and politically correct for me, but then a friend asks me to reach over to get him something and I realise that he has taken all his clothes off.” As you do...

* Nationwide building society has weathered the credit crunch better than most — but the mutual is in danger of losing its reputation for competitive rates. Price comparison website Moneynet.co.uk reports Nationwide's authorised overdraft rate for current account customers was hiked from 9.9% to 12.9% in June last year, then 17.9% in February and now 18.9%. During this time, the Bank of England has cut rates from 5% to 0.5%. Meanwhile, Nationwide has also increased its standard variable rate for new mortgage customers. Its old SVR — known as the Base Mortgage Rate — was guaranteed to be no more than 2% above the Bank of England rate. Since the end of April, it has a new SVR — called the Standard Mortgage Rate — which is currently a whopping 3.49% above Bank of England. On a £180,000 mortgage, that's the equivalent of about £150 extra a month.