Postcomm, the postal industry regulator, is seeking a new chief executive for November, when Sarah Chambers, the incumbent and a career civil servant, ends her four-year term.

But what sort of job will the successful applicant take over? I hear whispers of some sort of reorganisation that is under consideration to create a “super-regulator” to transfer some of Postcomm's responsibilities across to Ofcom, which at present oversees only the Royal Mail's broadband activities.

“This is entirely a matter for the Government,” Ofcom insists.

Postcomm says that there is no change to the job specifications as they are advertised, which call for “a forward-thinking CEO ... at a time when the postal market is undergoing profound change”. My informant insists whoever gets the top Postcomm job “is not going to be head-to-head with Allan Leighton [the Royal Mail chairman].”

The Bank of England is hopping mad over a piece in the trade magazine PR Week that claims to have obtained, under the Freedom of Information Act, the news that it will be spending £3.15million on public relations this year.

There is some suggestion that this is down to “concerns over the British economy”. Actually, the Bank tells me, that £3.15million figure is an increase from, well, £3.1million last year. “They spun it,” a staffer complains. Well, it was in PR Week.

Never one to miss a trick, Wal-Mart is offering to convert the tax rebates arriving at poor American households into cash, which might then be spent at its stores.

Or, then again, might not be, but its stores have cut essentials prices to be ready. It is no coincidence that rich lists in the US tend to be overly populated by people called Walton.

It comes to a fine pass when a large chunk of the City is closed down and no one else seems to notice. The staff at Norton Rose, Ernst & Young and other firms south of the river on the More London development were forced to, er, “work from home” this week when someone cut a water main, leading to power supplies being cut off. E&Y was back at work yesterday but other firms in the area have not been so fortunate.

Thames Water says its output is drinkable, but Transport for London was advising people to stay away.

A live blog arrives filed from Terminal 5 by Ken Frost, trouble-making accountant and occasional visitor to this column. “Where is everybody?

There are very few passengers here; none at check-in, two at security and very few in the lounge,” he reports. “It would seem that the recent problems with T5, and BA's handling of them, have driven BA's passengers away.”

BA points out that with the delay in transferring across long-haul flights from T3, the terminal is underused and most flights out of it are now in the morning or evening. “It's a vast place. He probably does feel like a pea in a pod at the moment. It's perfectly normal.”

Outsourcing has its drawbacks. A colleague in the North East was called back after an earlier inquiry about insurance. Northumberland? What state was that? Er, we don't have states here, we have counties. North Umberland? Is that a capital “U” in Umberland? The caller didn't get the contract. Well, would you insure your house with a firm with such a vague grasp of geography?

Phone the HM Revenue & Customs' “nationwide agent priority line” on tax credit issues and you get ... the foreign currency trader Travelex.

Another Revenue screw-up? Apparently not, it's the phone lines this time. “That tends to happen,” says a resigned Travelex operator. “We tend to get all sorts of peculiar calls coming through to us.”

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