Much jollity at Sir Victor Blank's leaving party at Lloyds Banking Group headquarters in Gresham Street the other evening. It was very much an in-house affair for the 100 or so colleagues who dealt with the outgoing chairman on a regular basis, including his fellow non-executive directors.

Sir Win Bischoff, the new chairman, was not present. There were two speeches, one from Sir Victor and the other from Eric Daniels, the bank's chief executive.

Both were extremely upbeat and followed the theme that Lloyds' merger with HBOS will work out fine in the medium term. They were speaking as the European Union was indicating it may unwind the marriage as the price of receiving aid from the British taxpayer, but that prospect wasn't mentioned — so either they did not know about
the European move, which seems unlikely, or it does not perturb them too greatly.

Daniels referred to a question to Blank at the last Lloyds annual general meeting, where a shareholder quizzed him on the share price and the HBOS takeover.

So confident was the chairman that the bank was doing the right thing that he hoped to buy the investor a beer to celebrate in a year or two.
Daniels said he was able to say that things were going so well these days that the bank “might stretch to champagne”.

* Can it really be true that those bastions of British life, Ladbrokes and William Hill, are continuing to operate a “salon privé” in their smarter betting shops for high-rolling Middle Eastern punters who enjoy a chug on their Cuban cigars while watching the racing?

If at first you don't succeed...

Try, try and try again. Keith Cochrane is best remembered for being elevated to the chief executive's job at Stagecoach while still in his early thirties, and then being summarily defenestrated within 18 months by his mercurial boss Brian Souter, who took his old job back. A few years later, Cochrane pitched up in the boardroom of Scottish Power, where he and his ambitions were outmanoeuvred by rival executives.
Now at the tender age of 44, he's back again, having been appointed chief executive at Weir Group, the Scots engineering group where he has been biding his time as finance director...

* Is the Wall Street Journal being anglicised by its newish editor Robert Thomson, an Aussie who cut his teeth on The Times and Financial Times here? US online news magazine Slate complains that a front-page fashion article in the American edition of the Journal this week used the phrase “come a cropper”. Says Slate writer James Ledbetter: “I would bet that three-quarters of American Journal readers do not know the phrase come a cropper'. (It means to fail or fall apart and is often listed as British informal' speech.) I myself had never heard it before living in London for a few years. A quick informal survey of Americans I know yielded not one who knew what it meant. It's [Rupert] Murdoch's paper to play with, of course. But, as the British might say, he better make sure he doesn't alienate his punters.” Given the Journal's stuffy and ponderous reputation before Murdoch bought it, anything to perk up the paper is good news.

Now that's a social network

Joanna Shields, former boss of social networking website Bebo, has long been a fully paid-up London cheerleader for Barack Obama — and she can thank him for helping her land a new job. It was through election fundraising last year that Shields became close to Elisabeth Murdoch, boss of TV indie Shine. Now the pair are going into business together, with Elisabeth, daughter of Rupert, hiring Joanna to be chief executive of a new TV/social networking venture. Shields helped to organise one fundraiser last year, at the Notting Hill home Murdoch shares with PR man Matthew Freud. It reportedly raised over $400,000 in a single evening. And Obama phoned during the party to thank the hosts. Now that's a social network...

* It is to be hoped media coverage is not regarded as an accurate measure of who are the most powerful lawyers in London. An annual survey of press cuttings by publisher Sweet & Maxwell finds that the most-mentioned solicitor in the national press was Fiona Shackleton (who advised Sir Paul McCartney and Madonna on their divorces) and the most-mentioned judicial figure was libel beak Mr Justice Eady (who presided over the Max Mosley case). Nobody from the City's hallowed Magic Circle firms even rates a mention in the top 10 solicitors.

* Following City Spy's piece about the King's Road branch of Marks & Spencer and its habit of having empty food shelves, a reader writes: “I can only agree. I tried on four different occasions to buy some cakes for tea with an elderly lady and failed each time as, and I quote, we fill the shelves at 8.30 in the morning and don't re-stock.' So if you forget that you have a tea date, or if you simply fancy a cream slice at tea-time (say between 3pm and 5pm), you have no chance of getting one.” An M&S insider, said: “Deliveries are controlled by a central ordering unit and they get what they are given; individual stores do not have the choice of what to order, it's all done by a depot somewhere. So, if a product is popular and runs out, they won't get a bigger supply. Equally, if a product sits on the shelf, the branch will get the same amount as they cannot reduce the order either.” Has M&S not heard of the tried, tested and much favoured (notably by Tesco) but decidedly modern, retail practice of just-in-time delivery?

* Golly, what is going on? A correspondent writes to complain of the noxious “toilet” smell emanating from the Royal Bank of Scotland building in Bishopsgate. “I walk every morning and evening down the Brushfield Street side, where there is the all pervading stench — seriously.” Has new supremo Stephen Hester cut back on the Harpic? Is it toxic? Stephen, we must be told.

* A wonderful tale in Campaign magazine, which for its annual “graduate” issue decided it ought to have some pictures of eager trainees in the workplace. One of the snaps it obtained was inside the offices of the Grand Union agency. There was even a work-experience teenager surfing the internet with his back to the camera.

Unfortunately, when the photo was blown up, it showed he was studying a porn site and was engaged in an on-screen dialogue with a scantily clad lady. The would-be advertising smoothie was actually typing the phrase “get your tits out please!” Concluded Campaign: “It certainly goes to prove chivalry isn't dead, and you get the feeling that if the young lad continues with these exploits, he'll fit right in with the rest of the advertising industry.”