It has not been a good autumn for Sir Derek Wanless, the banker who sits on the Northern Rock board. Now there is embarrassment for him wearing his other hat, as chairman of Northumbrian Water. The company had sponsored an award at an Environmental and Media event the other night and hired a table. They were awaiting their turn in the spotlight when the winners of the previous award, for best environmental campaign, were announced.

Surfers Against Sewage got up and produced their own gong, the Golden Bog Brush, awarded to Northumbrian for polluting a beach in the North East. The leading Surfer brought the award, which was indeed a gold-painted lavatory brush, to the Northumbrian table. Alistair Baker, the host and manager of communications, for reasons best known to himself, detached the brush from its holder and plonked it in the wine bucket.

I had always assumed recruitment at Goldman Sachs was a relatively easy matter – success and riches beyond measure in return for your immortal soul and any hope of a personal life. But possibly not. An e-mail flyer from the Goldman Sachs Office of Alumnus Relations suggests that the recipient, who left some years ago, might like to take up various job opportunities still open at the firm. I would have thought an earlier decision to walk away from Goldman’s Faustian pact showed a strong disinclination to dial 666 again. “With 30,000 people, there are always going to be vacancies,” one of the firm’s lost souls intones from the infernal regions.

A trading update from Dutch insurer Aegon comes with a staggering 18 caveats, reasons why the above anodyne forecasts cannot be relied on. In at No 12, “Acts of God, acts of terrorism, acts of war and pandemics.” Yes, insurers are always keen to find reasons to walk away from their promises and acts of God are a longstanding favourite.

BP and Gazprom are refusing to comment on market rumours that the latter may take a stake in BP’s Russian venture TNK-BP, but I can reveal that BP’s Tony Hayward and Gazprom boss Alexei Miller have been in contact. A picture I had taken with a telephoto lens at the Chelsea draw with Schalke 04 earlier this week – oh, all right, I found it on a newswire – shows that negotiations are not going well. Miller, who is on the left, is giving his response to Hayward’s suggested price for the stake.

Going long on carbon

Some query whether the markets that allow trading in carbon emission permits are a mere passing fashion. One market veteran has apparently decided they are here to stay. I hear that Brian Williamson is joining the board of AIM-listed Climate Exchange, which owns the European Climate Exchange. He did two spells as chairman of Liffe, so was instrumental in creating the last big manufacturing market to arrive in London.

A letter appears in the Financial Times taking issue with the recent and unpopular changes in capital gains tax, from Chris Sanger, head of tax policy at Ernst & Young. It is cautious and measured, but he is in favour of the old 10 per cent taper. This is, is it not, the same Chris Sanger who, as new Labour’s main tax adviser, invented taper tax relief and other measures while the party was in

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