GOOGLE is rightly proud of its new Gmail e-mail service, which has attracted the admiration of netheads worldwide. But I wonder if the company is in danger of becoming complacent.

A separate company had previously set up a website, gmail.co.uk. This invites you to enter your username and password to log in. Nothing to do with Google — “No, we’re gmail.com” — but it would be an easy way to gather a list of real Gmail users and their passwords.

Google seems remarkably relaxed about this. The relevant people are on holiday, and their legal people tell me to send an e-mail to their helpline. No response. But the other company says it has had offers to buy the name, though not from Google. “Luckily, we’re honourable people.”

THERE was a charity event at Lazards’ Stratton Street offices the other night, raising funds for an Oxford children’s hospital. They hired a steel band. Just down the road, there was a do at the Fleming family’s Berkeley Street art gallery. They hired some bagpipes. The resulting cacophony was indescribable.

EU vacuum

THE pressure group Britain in Europe wrote to the Financial Times yesterday urging British employers to support the EU constitution. “Crucially, rejection of the treaty would put British business and British jobs at risk,” the letter said.

I survey the list of signatures. The usual subjects: Lord Marshall of Knightsbridge, Lord (Chris) Haskins, Lord (Colin) Sharman. And Sir Richard Needham, deputy chairman of Dyson Appliances. That would be the same Dyson Appliances, chaired by euro-fanatic James Dyson, that two years ago relocated 800 jobs to the Far East because wages in the UK were already too high, would it?

UNILEVER plans to camp out next door at the JP Morgan building on Victoria Embankment for 18 months from September while its historic HQ at Blackfriars is being refurbished. The new offices will be open plan, and there will therefore not be enough space to display the impressive modern art collection that has been built up at Unilever House over the past couple of decades. The collection, which features some early works from artists who later went on to become famous, is being catalogued, amid much debate over what to do with it.

Ringing revenues

SHAREHOLDERS in mmO2, the mobile phone company, have been issued with strict instructions for the annual meeting on July 28 in Reading. “Please ensure mobile telephones or pagers are switched off for the duration of the meeting,” they are told in the report and accounts.

I ring to ask if mmO2 believes this welcome advice should be extended, perhaps to train carriages or other public places. “It’s obviously not company policy that people should turn their phones off,” huffs a spokesman.

Indeed not. Back when mmO2 was plain, humble Cellnet, I recall, Sir Christopher Bland, the then chairman, asked an audience he was addressing to turn off their phones. “Except Cellnet subscribers, because we need the revenue.”

city.diary@thetimes.co.uk

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