The Huntingdon Life Sciences animal rights mob are back in town. There was a decent-sized demo outside AXA’s Aldgate offices yesterday. It was, of course, the wrong offices, because they are objecting to the shareholding activities of the investment management side, which is elsewhere. Plus, as I have written before, the shares are held on behalf of mutual funds and other clients, which means AXA has no choice in the matter. Not that it’ll make any difference. The protesters have been more active this autumn, and it is a moot point whether they will now drift away again now the university term is under way. Probably not, from my experience of mid1970s student protest, which generally took place during term rather than being allowed to mar the leisure months.

What sort are they, I ask a witness, the usual crusties? “More caring looking.” Oh. Guardian readers, then.

Ping! An e-mail arrives from a lovely lady who has been running orphanages in Australia since she was 22. There is a problem. Donations come from all around the world, but often as cheques or traveller’s cheques, which are hard to cash in Australia. Could the e-mail recipient run a bank account here to clear them? 11 per cent of takings? The reader submitting this wonders whether it is another Nigerian letter scam. No, this is generally money laundering, and the business won’t be an orphanage. Nice touch, those poor orphans, though.

Turquoise, the consortium of banks trying to set up a dealing exchange to rival the London Stock Exchange, has chosen to confirm my story that the chief executive, after a long search, would be an insider by leaking the fact to another newspaper. Brilliant.

Welcome on board, Morgan Stanley’s Eli Lederman. But I note that the latest announcement says the exchange will be up and running “by the end of next year”.

Funnily enough, on Monday they told me it would be end-June at the latest, which suggests an alarming rate of slippage in just a few days. The whole thing was meant to be up by about now, then by the start of next year, and then . . .

Anyway, I ask David Buik from Cantor Index for odds on when they will actually manage it. He says 16-1 end-March, which is impossible, 5-1 end-June, just feasible, 5-2 end-September, verging on the possible.

Evens, January 2009. I’m not sure I’m buying any of those.

Most pro bono jobs taken up after a lifetime of lucrative toil bring with them the prospect of a knighthood or gong, in return for dull work on a quango or whatever. This one brings the opportunity of spiritual advancement. An inter-faith organisation working to improve relations between religions is looking for someone to run it, “of special interest to someone in business or commerce who would welcome the opportunity of putting something back into society”.

Lost in translation? The Lord Mayor, John Stuttard, is in Beijing, where he met the country’s Minister of Commerce, Bo Xilai. The discussion was conducted via interpreters, but at the end the Minister suddenly said to Stuttard in plain English: “You are a very handsome man.” Stuttard, entirely unfazed, replied: “Thank you. Very few people have said this. Most people comment about my badge of office instead.” Not entirely clear what Bo meant to say. Is there an obvious near-translation?

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