Tonight:
4°c
We were sitting in The Ritz Hotel. The property developer, who specialises in supplying homes to the super-rich, leaned forward. "Why am I getting such a bad press?" he asked.
If you really want to know, I said, it's because flash is no longer seen as clever, and society has gone, in barely any time at all, from embracing money and celebrity to actively reviling it. If you want to be more liked, I added, then you should boast more about the social housing aspect of your developments rather than how much a flat costs.
Until very recently, such a conversation would have been unthinkable. We went through an era when bling was king and anyone with a private jet and super-yacht was held in high esteem. It was a selfish, I'm-all-right-Jack period.
That's not entirely gone but something has definitely changed. The realisation that our aspiration was hollow came with the collapse of Lehman and the subsequent recapitalisation of the banks. Suddenly, the emptiness and venality of the self-anointed leaders of our universe was laid bare.
The following recession has seen a coming together: nobody's job is safe, everyone is uncertain.
Out of that realisation has flowed a new spirit. It's an exaggeration to say it's a financial equivalent of London's response to the Blitz but neither is that a million miles away. People are more open and honest than they were about their own circumstances and prospects.
Yesterday, over lunch with a City PR man, the discussion was not about accounts won but business lost. There's no putting one across any more, no blatant points-scoring. The buzzword is transparency.
It's not just the City where this new awareness and sensitivity is visible but everywhere. Obviously the loathing of the banks is a catalyst, a common touchstone for our anger. Even now, some of the bankers don't get it - so the Bank of England cuts rates and several banks don't pass the reduction on. Of course, they are entitled to take that view and yes, they can argue, they are duty-bound to put their shareholders first.
As these banks did not fall under state control, it's difficult to counter their attitude. But society has moved on from regarding them as insensitive to actually treating them with contempt. Unbelievably, those who once never dreamed of interfering with the banks are calling for more nationalisation, not less. The wiser ones, though, do get it. Very much so. There's a new mood in the City and elsewhere: at a cynical level it's to do with perception and image but increasingly, deeper down, it's a reflection of the thought that we have to shift, we cannot go on living like we are and if we don't, all we are doing is storing up trouble for the future.
That's why, for instance, the scheme for bright graduates to work in our most deprived and problematic schools, Teach First, has been inundated with enquiries. They are not all recruits who were destined for Lehman or Citigroup. There are still plenty of careers around that offer lucrative openings but they have chosen to become state school teachers.
What impresses more today than taking is giving. In the end, that is how people will be judged - not by how much they spent and squandered.
We seem to have had a surfeit this year of grim news. Teenagers have been stabbed and shot on our streets. There have been shocking tales of child abuse. We are right to condemn the perpetrators but we can't ignore their frequently broken and squalid backgrounds. We either do something about it or stay as we were. In the past, we may have veered towards complacency. Now, I sense a genuine willingness among people I come across, many of them at the top of our biggest businesses, to put their money to good effect, to try to repair the cracks.
Partly, it's born out of frustration at the inability of government to provide a solution. Partly, though, it's the acknowledgement that the rich-poor divide must be narrowed, not widened.
The charity the Standard has chosen for its Christmas auction this year is a case in point. It's Greenhouse, founded by Mike de Giorgio, who left the City to try to make a difference. Another key player in the organisation is Michael Sherwood, the co-head of Goldman Sachs in Europe.
Earlier this year, I went to a Greenhouse event at the Royal Albert Hall as a guest of John Varley, CEO of Barclays. The boxes were packed with City firms, their clients, contacts and friends. The occasion was a table-tennis tournament involving the world's leading exponents of the game. This doubled as a fund-raiser for Greenhouse and a showcase for the charity's work. Joining the professional sports stars were children from some of our toughest inner-city areas. Greenhouse had encouraged them to leave the streets and play table-tennis, basketball and other games.
This might not solve the problems but it's surely better than doing nothing at all. What was striking about that occasion is that nobody sneered, no one displayed indifference. We have not reached the American model, where the making of substantial charitable donations by the better off financially is regarded as a sine qua non but we are not far off it now.
Last night, London witnessed the sort of event that is commonplace in New York and is becoming increasingly popular over here. Roger Jenkins, chairman of Barclays Capital's Middle East operation, held a fundraiser at his Kensington home for Darfur. Tickets cost £20,000 for two and with the help of guests such as George Clooney the party raised £10 million.
We are not embarrassed by charity events as we once might have been. This week, I went to hear Handel's Messiah at the Barbican by the great choral and orchestral ensemble The Sixteen. Before he raised his baton, the creator and conductor of The Sixteen, Harry Christophers, announced to a packed hall that the evening was dedicated to Jane Coe, the group's long-time cellist who died last year. Money raised from the event would go towards a trust for her two sons.
There was no awkwardness or mawkishness. In the circumstances, faced with some of the finest musicians in the land, performing the most moving of spiritual works, in the setting of a superb, full, auditorium, in the run up to Christmas, Christophers' entreaties seemed perfectly natural. Around me were rustles of paper as people, many of them in pinstripe suits, without hesitation reached for their wallets and the donor envelopes.
The occasion was lent added meaning and purpose by giving. Times are hard but out of them, charity is at last offering us hope of moving in a better direction.
The Evening Standard Christmas charity auction - bid here
