Jean-Pierre Garnier, the GlaxoSmithKline chief executive, probably expected an easy ride when he appeared on Radio 4's Today to puff the firm's anti-bird flu vaccine. He didn't get it. James Naughtie laid into an increasingly furious Garnier about the criticism that GSK came in for over Seroxat, the antidepressant drug linked to suicides among children. “Does this mean that all the information GSK holds on the development of Seroxat will be put in the public domain?” Naughtie asked. This comprised “millions of documents, millions”, Garnier countered, saying that all had been made available to watchdogs.

Naughtie pressed him further. “I'm not interested in answering this question. We've dealt with this subject. Thank you for taking the time to hear about the [bird flu] pandemic.” And Garnier was off. It might not have helped that Naughtie referred to a man who clearly takes himself very seriously as “Jean-Paul Garnier”.

This is just not cricket

Northern Rock has its own box at Lords. This was conspicuously empty during the New Zealand Test match, a reader notes. “The box we have at Lord's is part of our long-term sponsorship of Marylebone Cricket Club,” a spokesman confirms. When it is not in use by the bank, it is available to the MCC. “They could hire it out and use the money to contribute to paying us taxpayers back,” my informant counters.

— I may have further bad news for the England football team, which has failed to qualify for some European contest - the precise details bore me. Gordon Brown was due to appear yesterday at Google's preposterously named Zeitgeist conference at The Grove, a golf resort hotel and spa in Hertfordshire. This is, my informant assures me, where the England players usually prepare before losing gallantly in the quarter-final penalty shoot-out.

And Brown has a staggering record for putting the mockers on any football event with which he is associated.

— You never cease to amaze me. The other day I tore into some ridiculous device that keeps half a banana fresh while one eats the other half. I had assumed that no one could want such a thing. Result: two e-mails from readers requesting the website and a call from another, lacking an internet connection, determined to track the device to its Pennsylvania source.

— The Osmonds made their first visit to the trading floor of ODL Securities, the broker, before today's fundraiser, at which ODL will donate profits from the day's trading to a charity founded by Marie Osmond in 1983. The Children's Miracle Network raises funds for children's hospitals. Marie I can identify in a picture taken at the event; not sure who is who among her siblings, but it's pretty easy to spot Graham Wellesley, the ODL chief executive. And a descendant, now I think of it, of the Duke of Wellington. Nosey and the Osmonds in the same story? Who'd have thought it?

— Could someone on the board of Bradford & Bingley end up having their collars felt over the U-turn last week over that £300million rights issue, only weeks after ruling one out? Needless to say the FSA, which prefers prosecuting two-men-and-a-dog IFAs to going after corporate titans who mislead the market, is taking no action. And B&B, sounding a little like our dear Prime Minister in one of his increasingly frequent denials of reality, claims that there was no U-turn.

But Bedlam Asset Management points out that had the firm been New York-listed, there would have been an immediate SEC investigation. And we all know where those lead. It could also apply to a UK company with US shareholders and B&B, which does not seem to have considered this point, has about 2.5 per cent of its shares in US hands. Or perhaps those shareholders might be feeling litigious ...

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