Forget a winter wonderland of fun opposite Marks & Spencer on Oxford Street. Developer Land Securities rather fancied laying down an ice rink on their vacant lot after winning a year-long permission for “large entertainment uses” on the site where work will begin next year. But no: local curmudgeons have objected to the idea.

LandSecs are still looking at other, quieter, ideas to appease their neighbours. That long-winded process will probably ensure that the next sign of life will be big yellow machines roaring around digging the foundations for the new shops and offices.

* A JD Wetherspoon's pub, an early afternoon towards the end of last week, and a bunch of postmen who have knocked off for the day are discussing the strike: “Thing is,” says one. “When the strike is over the backlog of stuff to deliver will be massive. The overtime is going to be fantastic.”

* COULD a Spanish flag soon be flying above one of Brussels' biggest banks? Although the Spanish economy is even deeper in the mire than ours, Santander has somehow sailed through the recession, snapping up Alliance & Leicester and the deposits and branches of Bradford & Bingley in the process. But now the rumour in the City is that it has turned its eyes to a much bigger prize: Belgium's KBC, the owner — if probably not for much longer — of stockbroker KBC Peel Hunt.

Train fares muddle is madness

CONFUSED by all those discounted online ticket prices you can get on the railways whilst outraged by those rip-off turn-up-and-go fares? Official industry figures show that 80% of all train tickets bought are discounted. This, declares trainspotter-in-chief Nigel Harris of Rail magazine, is patently madness. If only the few are paying the rip-off fares and eight out of 10 people are already getting “cheap” fares then why not scrap all the railcards, online offers, short-notice bargains, complex ordinary fare structures and wrong train penalties with one simple fare from A to B in which you pay a set rate more for travel during peak hours. No, no, no. That would be far too simple.

* HEAVY irony. National Express is on the verge of extinction as an independent entity, brought down as much as anything by its sacking in the summer from the King's Cross East Coast Main Line train franchise by the Department for Transport. Yet the latest quarterly performance trends from the Office of Rail Regulation reveal that in the last quarter National Express will have been in charge, the service is Britain's most improved train company. Doh!

No smoke without fire with dopey Bear boss Jimmy

Looks like Wall Street CNBC pundit Charlie Gasparino's new book The Sellout is going to be a humdinger for crash anecdotes. Take this one about Bear Stearns chief executive Jimmy Cayne's legendary, but always denied, dope smoking.

His chairman “Ace” Greenberg got the occasional feedback about Cayne's “partying”, Gasaparino tells us. Such as this: “One time when a senior executive at the firm, William Montgoris, walked by Cayne's office, detected the scent of marijuana, and reported the incident. Greenberg asked Cayne if what Montgoris was saying was true, but Cayne attributed the marijuana smell to a new leather couch in my office,' and later invited Montgoris in for a whiff.

“Does the couch smell like pot or not?' he asked Montgoris, who nervously said it did, and the matter was dropped.”

* You can tell the commodity boom is back on: A City Spy reader travelling by rail from Euston on the West Coast Line reports the train was badly diverted because the overheard cabling had been stolen in the Coventry area. The mole was told the thieves wanted the copper — and it's apparently happening a lot.

* The recession continues in the UK but Louis Vuitton reckons the boom times are back elsewhere. The luxury retailer opened a new branch this week in the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator. Seriously. Vuitton chief executive Yves Carcelle said he had noticed many of the retailer's monogrammed bags “on the arms of elegant women” in happening downtown Ulan Bator. In a nod to Mongolia's “strong horse riding culture”, it is selling a special designer horse saddle. Don't all rush to Ulan Bator at once.

* Who volunteers to get tea or coffee for their colleagues in the office? Coffee chain Starbucks has commissioned a survey which found one in three bosses say that those that get them a cuppa have a better work ethic and would stand more chance of promotion. Funnily enough, only 19% of employees volunteer for the task. The top ten excuses include making a pretend phone call, hiding, and telling colleagues you are too important to make the drinks. Quite.

* ACCOUNTANTS, don't you just love em? The Prudential has lost a High Court case against Revenue & Customs in which the insurance giant is claiming that the tax advice it has got from PricewaterhouseCoopers should remain confidential. The case — which is being appealed — revealed that accountants are arguing that their advice to clients should be covered by Legal Professional Privilege and therefore confidential and not open to third party prying. Lest it be forgotten this tax advice is avoidance advice, cleverly-peddled schemes to diddle the public purse...