No greater joy in heaven than when a sinner repenteth. Sir John Major was asked at a joint Hansard Society-London School of Economics event whether he regretted his decision to privatise the railways. “Yes, I do have one regret,” Major admitted. “My instinct was to privatise it not as we did, with the separation of rail and track. It was to privatise it regionally.”

This would have taken us back to that prelapsarian state of regional rail companies. So why didn’t Major do it? “We were given very strong advice from within the industry and from within the Treasury that if we did that, all the investment would then go into the rolling stock and not into the railway itself.” His questioner in the audience was, inevitably, Tom Winsor, the former rail regulator.

British cuisine sidelined by French stuff

The new London restaurant from Gary Rhodes, Rhodes W1, opens at the Cumberland Hotel next month. The former disciple of British staples such as faggots, oxtails and jam roly-poly tells Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine that it will have “strong elements of French technique”. So out goes the bread-and-butter pudding and in comes a summer-fruit soufflé. Could this conversion, a mischievous observer asks, have anything to do with Rhodes having won five single Michelin stars but never the two or three that go to establishments with mainly French cuisine? “I want the Michelin inspectors to recognise that it’s more refined than anything I’ve done in the past,” he claims.

The Lord Mayor John Stuttard is in Guandong in China, where yesterday was the first day for banks to provide accounts in the local currency, the yuan. Stuttard clearly had to have one, and Sir Tom Harris, vice-chairman of Standard Chartered, was happy to oblige with the bank’s first such. But not before his new client had to touch Billy King-Harman, the City Marshal, for the necessary notes to open it. Clearly the Lord Mayor, like the Queen, doesn’t carry cash.

Welcome to the City to Hugo Jenkins, who has just joined the financial PR group Abchurch. Jenkins has an earlier career, colleagues may be surprised to hear, working for Butlers in the Buff, an enterprise that provides hen parties with butlers who . . . well, you probably get the point. “It got me through university,” admits Jenkins, who has been dobbed up by a rival and would rather the information went no further. Of course. I promise I won’t tell a soul.

In this week of takeovers, one on the spiritual plane. The Roman Catholic church has just abandoned Limbo, on the ground that the concept is incompatible with today’s theological thinking. The space has immediately been acquired by the Discordian Society, a US spoof religious cult. “We look forward to giving the place a clean sweep, a good polish and a nice redecoration,” says one of the group’s Popes, it says here.

“Captain America Arrested With Burrito In Pants,” is the, er, arresting headline in Raymond Adamcik's local paper. The good doctor from Florida had the tortilla stuffed down his trousers during a pub crawl and allegedly was using it to harass women. His friends were also dressed as cartoon heroes and, as a result, says the police report, “all Captain Americas were asked to go outside for a possible identification”. Equally deadpan was the local police department comment: “This is definitely an unusual situation.” No, I know it has nothing to do with business. But how could I resist?

Simon Duffy, the former NTL boss who left in January saying his work there was done, has a new vehicle, according to his business card, Sybic. A classical reference? Not one that I recognise. No, it stands for See You Bastards in Court.

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