IT'S not often that City Spy is reduced to tears but Lord Bilimoria's travails after putting his Cobra Beer business into a pre-pack administration (the brewer has been sold to Molson Coors, Bilimoria keeps 49.9% and most of the creditors who are owed £71 million are out of pocket), provoke great waves of sympathy.

Yes, there is suffering in the world. Yes, there are poor people. But can you imagine the pain of Bilimoria? “I am now earning a fraction of what I was earning before. I had a car and a driver but I no longer have that. Now I drive a 13-year-old Mercedes Coupé that has done over 100,000 miles.”

Ah, the anguish. He drives himself! A 13-year-old Coupé! Over 100,000 miles! Please will all those nasty creditors acknowledge true sacrifice and stop their bleating.

NEXT week, steel yourselves, it gets worse: Lord Bilimoria is forced to use the Tube…

Something to sing about

THE day after it was revealed that private-equity tycoon Stephen Schwarzman was America's best-paid corporate boss, earning £424 million last year, “steveschwarzman” posts a few messages on Twitter. “Who's back on top? Me!” he writes, before posting a link to a story about his pay package. Then a few hours later, another tweet. “Super weekend in st. trop [Saint Tropez] … 4-hour lunch at club 55 on saturday!”

Is this the real Mr Schwarzman? City Spy has doubts — but then, the Blackstone boss did pay for Rod Stewart, Marvin Hamlisch and Patti LaBelle to sing, the Wall Street Journal reported at the time, “a tune about Mr Schwarzman” for his 60th birthday — so who knows?

* A strange tale from the North, where an agent for SOCA, the Serious Organised Crimes Agency, has not had his contract renewed after a dawn raid on a politician's home.

Frank McGrath, the former deputy leader of Preston council, who claimed his income records had been leaked from an HMRC tax office and sold to his political opponents, was arrested by two SOCA officials acting for HM Revenue & Customs. The ex-councillor appeared in court later in the day, charged with five counts of intimidating potential witnesses in a money-laundering case by sending them a series of documents. He was refused bail.

Because of a clerical error, McGrath, a wealthy tax and property adviser, was mistakenly classified as a “convicted prisoner” at Preston Prison. Finally, a judge decided there was no case to answer, dismissed the intimidation charges and awarded costs against HMRC and SOCA.

In other words, the taxpayer gets socked with a large bill. Again.

* MYSTERY surrounds the departure of Aldi's highly regarded UK boss Paul Foley. According to The Grocer, he might have been too outspoken for the chain's German owners, particularly when he sent a letter to suppliers demanding a 5% cut in prices, which led to bad publicity. Aldi prefers to squeeze discreetly and there's little chance of Foley's successor ruffling feathers. Armin Burger is known inside Aldi as “the silent tycoon”.

* RELATIONS between two of America's top newscasters, Fox News's Bill O'Reilly and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, have sunk to new lows. The two have never liked each other but since O'Reilly claimed that General Electric was under investigation on claims that it supplied bomb-making materials to terrorists, they have hit rock bottom. GE, which of course owns MSNBC, issued a formal statement describing Fox's claims as “irresponsible and maliciously false”. But presenter Olbermann went further, describing O'Reilly in four of his last eight shows as “the worst person in the world”. Then came his punchline: “As a reporter, I wouldn't send O'Reilly to cover a john overflowing.”

* MEANWHILE, there is good news for Fox Business Network, which will be celebrating its second birthday this week.

According to US media agency Nielsen, the channel — an offshoot of Fox News — is now seen by a massive 21,000 people between 5am and 9pm.

If that doesn't sound like much, it's still a cause of great joy at Fox — most of the time since it opened, the audience was too small to even merit Nielsen's attention...

A Fein example of how not to behave

IT doesn't just rain for Lloyd Blankfein…

As he tries to fend off a mountain of criticism about pay awards and excessive profits, the New York Post is reporting how the Goldman Sachs chief's wife Laura and her friend Susan Friedman — wife of another Goldman honcho, Richard Friedman — objected to having to queue at a recent charity event in the Hamptons.

“Their behaviour was obnoxious. They were screaming,” one witness is reported as saying.

Apparently, la Blankfein said she wouldn't wait with “people who spend less money than me”.

* SERIOUSLY, PepsiCo, which owns Quaker Oats, is launching a new porridge cereal line called Paw Ridge…

* WHEN Bernie Madoff's right-hand man, Frank DiPascali, pleaded guilty to having had a role in the $65 billion Ponzi scheme, it included the guarantee that the Feds wouldn't come after DiPascali for the “use of controlled substances prior to 1992” or “for possessing illegal firearms up until last Friday”. So, coming straight after we hear rumours of Madoff's lengthy extra-marital affair, this can mean only one thing: Bernie Madoff: The Movie is set to be a humdinger.