Looking, as I always do, on the bright side, I note that an unexpected benefit of the chaos on world banking markets is that banks are dropping some of their more irritating advertising in favour of something more relevant to cash-strapped customers. HSBC's new campaign has the slogan “start unspending and start saving”. (Saving, for younger readers, is when you give them money you can afford rather than they give you money you can't. Yes, it does look a bit odd, doesn't it?)

Anyway, there is also a suggestion from medialand that Halifax is going for a more serious approach towards marketing, at the expense of Howard Brown and all those awful adverts featuring singing employees. That Herman's Hermits one, in particular, grates. Damn, I've just remembered the tune again. Halifax agrees that it has just re-appointed its agency but claims that reports of Howard's demise are “very premature - we're looking at the campaign at the moment”. Howard is apparently now doing “promotional work”. I manage, somehow, to contact him. Didn't you used to be big on TV? “I am big. It's the bank that got small.”

Does Tesco know its wheat from its oats? The Farmers Weekly website is terribly upset about the packaging for the grocer's brand of organic porridge oats, which quite clearly depicts Triticum aestivum rather than the more appropriate Avena sativa. (Stop showing off, Waller. We all know how to use the internet. Ed.) Tesco says that the criticism is “slightly unfair. It's a design feature of the packaging.” In other words, all its brands of cereal carry the same basic picture, no matter what they are made of. Quite so; though why the nation's farmers should be so keen to rubbish Tesco, I could not say.

Those various committees looking at the future of the City chaired by various investment bankers may or may not come to any useful conclusions, but they are keeping the management consultants busy. Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, has appointed McKinsey to help with his own review of London's position in world financial markets, led by Merrill Lynch's Bob Wigley. Now I hear that another huge US firm, Oliver Wyman, has clambered aboard the Financial Services Global Competitiveness Group, led by Sir Win Bischoff, which is doing much the same for the Treasury. Perhaps it might be more effective if they just compare notes?

JPMorgan has disdained the St Alphage House site planned for it in the City in favour of the uncompleted Bear Stearns building at Canary Wharf. So keen was the Wharf to win the new tenant that I am told a special team of cleaners was up all night picking up any untidy leaves that might have put the Americans off. Leaves? In August?

Those various committees looking at the future of the City chaired by various investment bankers may or may not come to any useful conclusions, but they are keeping the management consultants busy. Boris Johnson, the London Mayor, has appointed McKinsey to help with his own review of London's position in world financial markets, led by Merrill Lynch's Bob Wigley. Now I hear that another huge US firm, Oliver Wyman, has clambered aboard the Financial Services Global Competitiveness Group, led by Sir Win Bischoff, which is doing much the same for the Treasury. Perhaps it might be more effective if they just compare notes?

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