There is disquiet among the 650-plus staff at the fixed-income division of Lehman Brothers, who were made redundant this week. Their bit of the business was not bought by either Nomura or Barclays, though there were hopes right up to the last minute that it might be saved.

They are unhappy that, while being advised to sign on for any unemployment or social security benefits they are due, they have not been given their P45s with which to do so. Worse, there has been no arrangement whereby their work numbers, on surrender of their mobile phones, can be transferred to their private phones. This means that anyone calling to offer, perhaps, another job cannot get through.

“The way they've been treated in these final days is disgraceful,” says my source.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the administrator, is apologetic over what it calls “logistical” delays. “It was very late before it was clear the deal wouldn't be brokered. That's why it was so hard in terms of communications to the staff,” a spokeswoman says.

Meanwhile, I hear that someone playing a round at Beaconsfield Golf Club this week kept finding Lehman golf balls. He found one in the rough, one in a deep bunker, and another stuck in the mud. “Obviously, one banker decided a therapeutic round of golf might be the answer but couldn't concentrate on his game,” says my informant.

Given a platform to rail against continuing failure

Forgive me if I have mentioned this before.

But now that Network Rail has confirmed what I have been writing all summer, that chairman Sir Ian McAllister is to stand down, it might be appropriate to point out that he has yet to hand back the knighthood awarded last Christmas, when large chunks of the railways were in chaos?

And to go further, might his successor be asked to provide a pledge that he will reverse the current policy on repairs and engineering work at weekends?

The national scandal that leaves the UK as the only developed nation not to have a seven-day rail system?

The next strategy is to come up with some ideas

It is, you will agree, a hell of a time to launch a new hedge fund. But an e-mail arrives detailing the launch of Strategery Capital Management, a “unique hedge fund” with “no fixed mandate, though it is expected to initially focus on mortgage-backed securities”.

It is the largest in the world with an expected initial capital of $700 billion... Oh. I see.

Bankers are still in an Ivy league all of their own

Those 2,000 UBS staffers sacked yesterday might take note. A colleague arrived at The Ivy the other night, the almost unbookable Covent Garden restaurant and general media hangout. The doorman greeted her. Was she here for the restaurant, or for the private party for UBS upstairs? Hard times for some, clearly.

— Albert Edwards at Société Générale is a well-known bear, and his latest note says that the indicators “are all now consistent with an economy plunging into deep recession.”

Indeed so. But he adds: “On Saturday I also take my own headlong plunge into marriage. Maybe I'll come back from honeymoon bullish, and take our equity weighting up to 80 per cent. Maybe.”

— The ways of analysts are occasionally baffling. Goldman Sachs yesterday raised its target for Barclays to 390p, from 340p. The shares are currently about 360p. The rating is “Sell”. Hang on. If you think the shares are going to rise 30p, don't you want to buy them?

— Spotted on a sign outside a bar in Moorgate: “Don't worry about the world ending today, it's already tomorrow in Australia.”

The finger of blame?

Bill Clinton has been giving us the benefit of his views on the banking meldown.

This is about all Americans, not Wall Street, he said sternly. But one or two right-wing US blogsites are beginning to question how much culpability for the current chaos rests with the Comeback Kid.

In 1992 a Democrat-led Congress started to put pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the now-nationalised mortgage providers, to extend mortgages to low-income and medium-income borrowers.

Andrew Cuomo, Clinton's Housing Secretary, even investigated Fannie for possible racial discrimination. Loans to the less well-off surged. There is no indication that these were the ones who are now defaulting - they were more likely dragged in during the Dubya years.

But it makes one think...

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