THE more I uncover about the pay deal at Barclays Global Investors, the asset-management arm of Barclays, the more irregular it looks.

Six weeks ago The Sunday Times revealed that staff at BGI scooped a staggering £1.26 billion through a share-option scheme introduced in 2000.

During the first six months of this year, BGI paid out options worth £185m, which amounted to 77% of profits. Despite being unique to its sector, Barclays said this is normal.

So I took a closer look at the rules of the scheme and there was one area where the terms seemed clear: eligibility.

Since it exists purely to incentivise staff, the scheme puts strong emphasis on contribution before reward: “Options may be granted to such employees and full-time directors (being those directors who are obliged to devote substantially the whole of their working time to BGI).”

So how come Bob Diamond has 300,000 share options worth many millions? Sure, he’s been chairman of BGI for four years, but his day job has been chief executive of Barclays Capital.

Er, he had to help out a lot when chief executive Patricia Dunn was ill in 2003, splutters Barclays. So what was Dunn’s replacement, Blake Grossman, (who, incidentally, has been paid at least double Diamond’s options) up to? He was “inexperienced”, apparently.

And who was running Barcap? Still Diamond. Ah. So what of this “substantially the whole of their working time” rule? It was neither waived nor broken, insists Barclays. Right.

The private life of BBC cost-cutter Birt

IS LORD BIRT, the former director-general of the BBC, set to make his debut as chairman of a listed company? Birt, who was a strategy adviser to Tony Blair until the end of last year, has just been appointed as chairman of Infinis, the renewable-energy arm of Guy Hands’s Terra Firma, the private-equity house.

Infinis, which has an enterprise value of about £500m and converts gases from landfill sites into energy, is, I am told, planning to float on the London Stock Exchange.

It will be an interesting foray for Birt. The Liverpudlian, who is old chums with the entertainer Cilla Black, caused controversy at the BBC when it was discovered he was avoiding taxes by calling himself a consultant — a very private-company tactic. He is also known as a cost-cutter and fearsome organiser.

• RESIDENTS of Highgate have been in a funk ever since Knight Frank was appointed to sell Witanhurst, London’s second-biggest house after Buckingham Palace. The vast mansion’s notoriety as the BBC’s Fame Academy house as well as its £32m price tag has had agents salivating, yet the identity of the sellers has remained a mystery.

But now Prufrock can reveal that the 65-room pile belongs to cousins of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria who are behind an opaque offshore company, Mounir Development, that bought it in 1985. Time for a party?

• IT seems Tesco really is Britain’s favourite supermarket — for after-dinner speeches anyway.

On Monday at the British Retail Consortium’s annual dinner, broadcaster John Humphries ranted about the importance of consumer choice versus the dangers of monopolies — and picked on Tesco as proof that the bigger the market share, the less choice for consumers. Then at the Retail Industry Awards on Thursday, Tesco was forced to watch J Sainsbury crowned supermarket of the year, and then came under attack from comedian Fred MacAulay.

“I can see Tesco has adopted the same policy for this event as they do for their land banks,” he said. “They’ve booked seven tables but only occupied three.”

• THERE’s a sign of the times: Actimel, the slightly rancid health drink, is officially Britain’s fastest-growing brand.

Although we Brits are still very attached to Coke, Cadbury’s and Heinz, new healthy brands are gaining market share fast. According to research by Intangible Business, Actimel, whose brand has grown by 48% in three years, is joined by the likes of Kellogg’s Special K and Tropicana juices as the nation’s favourites. Fizzy drinks, such as Fanta, are falling fast.