Rory Godson, founder and boss of PR firm Powerscourt, kicked off the pre-Christmas party season with a good turnout at the Hospital Club in Covent Garden. Given Godson's connections, the Irish were out in force. HSBC chief executive Michael Geogeghan was in a huddle with outgoing Irish European commissioner Charlie McCreevy while U2's manager Paul McGuinness was also enjoying the craíc.

Media types included ITV's acting chief executive John Cresswell, whose friends keep pushing for him to get the job on a permanent basis, and former EMI boss Eric Nicoli.

The recession evidently has not hurt everyone. Charles Dunstone of Carphone Warehouse was merrily discussing boats with Sir Keith Mills. Other notable guests included deal-maker Robin Saunders, spotted talking to new BAT chairman Richard Burrows, and former Royal Bank of Scotland chairman Sir Tom McKillop, who made a rare appearance on the party circuit.

It was almost like old times...

* WORD at Canary Wharf is that Barclays Capital is paying bonuses in shares, which the bank will instantly lend against. So much for trying to rein them in, Gordon...

* HARD times at fund manager Foreign & Colonial. This year's staff Christmas party will be around the corner from its City offices in Broadgate at a branch of the Ping Pong restaurant chain. Not quite the same as the all-expenses blow-out at the Dorchester Hotel in previous years. F&C staff, who don't like the idea of going downmarket, joke that their firm should be renamed “KF&C”.

Portillo to the rescue?

ITV chairman Archie Norman used to be a staunch political ally of Michael Portillo. As an MP, Norman supported Miguel in his failed 2001 Tory leadership bid and ended up on the backbenches when that ended in failure. Eight years on, Portillo is newly installed at Tim Allan's PR firm Portland, the agency which has also just hired ex-Sky boss Tony Ball after his best efforts to seize the helm at ITV were torpedoed over the summer. City Spy trusts Portillo will now play peacemaker and soothe the friction between ITV and his Portland chums.

* DOES Morrison's have a ready-made chief executive already sitting on its board of non-executive directors? Nigel Robertson, 49, ticks several boxes. He used to be an executive at Marks & Spencer (which has just relieved Morrison's of their boss Marc Bolland). As a founding director of Ocado, Robertson also knows something about the trend for home deliveries, something Morrison's has been slow to embrace. And he's entrepreneurial, having dabbled in private equity and worked alongside Tim Waterstone on the acquisition of the Early Learning Centre.

* GOOD news: some economists refuse to believe the economy shrank by 0.3% in the third quarter. According to Amit Kara, at UBS, “there's likely to be more upward adjustment as further vintages of data are released” while David Page of Investec said: “We would harbour some scepticism that this figure is set in stone forever.” Alan Clarke, of BNP Paribas, said: “We still think there are further upward revisions to come. I think it will end up at close to zero but it takes time.” Bad news: given how wrong they all were on the way down there is little reason to think they'll be right on the way up.

* WHAT is it about high-class shirts? Suddenly, stores selling only shirts appear to be everywhere. But they will have to go some to even come close in size to the new Hawes & Curtis in Jermyn Street. It opened this week and covering two cavernous floors, it is claimed to be the largest shirt shop in Europe. Clearly, chairman Touker Suleyman is betting his shirt...

* THE prize for the most tawdry — and ludicrous — press release of the week goes to Illicit Encounters, in which it takes the credit for the decent performance of M&S's lingerie collection in the recession. The website for people looking for extra-marital affairs says that over 70% of its female users buy their undies from M&S or, as they put it, are “purchasing affair wear that their husbands will never see”. Apparently, this is not just an affair, this is a “we met on the internet and wore M&S pants affair”. M&S declined to comment.

* SIR Howard Davies, director of the London School of Economics and late of the Financial Services Authority, is known to be a man of many talents. Indeed, he revealed his fluency in French when he regaled businessmen at a lunch organised by the French Chamber of Commerce, where he was a guest speaker. His subject was the City of London's chances of surviving the recession. He said London had placed an “unhedged bet” on the financial sector and now could expect to pay a high price. French businessmen said they were impressed by his accent, but would have preferred less showing off by the Francophile Davies.