Is this the best piece of relationship banking in (Scottish) history? Sir Tom Hunter, entrepreneur and philanthropist, recalls in Insider magazine how he had been a loyal customer of the Royal Bank of Scotland until 1995, when he tried to buy the Olympus Sports chain. By coincidence, just before that he had bumped into Gavin Masterton, then governor of the Bank of Scotland, at a Rangers v Juventus game and the two hit it off. Masterton offered his bank’s services. “I said I am very happy where I am,” Hunter recalls. Then RBS wouldn’t back the Olympus deal, so Hunter asked a friend just who that guy was they met there. “The rest, as they say, is history.” Hunter became Scotland’s richest man. A second chance meeting then transformed Hunter’s life. This was with Vartan Gregorian, New York president of the Carnegie Corporation, set up by the Scots-born Andrew Carnegie, who became one of the world’s great philanthropists.

Biggles sees it through, or rather he doesn’t

Like anyone with any sense whatsoever, Giles Rowe, of the Mayfair fund manager Henderson Rowe, hates flying and is scared of heights. How better to celebrate his Dogs of the FTSE 100 Fund than to engage in a dogfight at 10,000ft, for charity, with his friend and IFA David Curley in Bulldog aerobatic planes - with someone else piloting, of course? At this stage, we usually report that our hero conquered his deepest fears and emerged triumphant. “Biggles” Rowe made it up to 2,500ft and then chickened out.

E.ON, the punctuationally challenged German energy company, is launching a search for the most energetic boss in Britain. (I wonder whether my old friend Ed Wallis, who sold PowerGen to the Germans, would qualify?) Meanwhile, Secretarial Awareness Week aims to raise the profile of the humble secretary, 18 per cent of whom “have been subject to sexual advances”, it says here. (It doesn’t say from whom, so one must assume the other 82 per cent are still pure as the driven snow, though it seems to go against common sense.) And it is also Stupid Aid Week, so someone has drawn up a list of five annoying things people do in offices, such as send witless e-mails. And sent it to me by e-mail. The Silly Season is officially declared over. Find something useful to do.

The end of this week sees the annual conference of the European Public Real Estate Association, the lobbying body for property developers. And where have they chosen for this event? Why, Athens, capital of the country where unscrupulous property developers have just burnt down big chunks of forest to allow them to be built on.

Hobson’s choice

A former colleague from this paper is in touch. Rodney Hobson has written Shares Made Simple, which is off to the printers this week for publication in November. Brilliant timing, what with the markets as they are. There must be a few punters who wish they had kept their money under the mattress. Hobson disagrees. The publishing date is “just in time to catch the Footsie topping 7,000 points”, he says. I don’t remember you being quite so optimistic, I say. “Just my little joke, but wouldn’t it be lovely if 7,000 really happened at the right moment?” Dream on.

Do you know this man? He is claimed to be a banker who features in a viral e-mail breakdancing to promote meshminds, an “exclusive community of creative young business professionals”. For which, read Facebook for the achingly trendy in the City. Note you can just see the Lloyd’s building behind him.

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