I can reveal the man who is really behind the Brand/Ross farrago. Lord Mandelson of Two Places That Never Really Wanted To Be Linked With Him is friends with that woman we'd never heard of before from Radio 2 who managed to resign before she was sacked, and with Russell Brand through a shared interest in whippets, I am told. The whole thing was dreamt up to publicise Brand's new TV programme and get Corfu off the front pages.

All right, I made it up. But you believed me for a moment, didn't you? Anyway Mandy, back from Moscow, was at a briefing with bankers and businessmen yesterday. There was to be a question and answer session with journalists, but this was cancelled at the last moment because of “logistical difficulties” and huge interest on the part of the press. So because everyone wanted to question Mandy on his return from a controversial trip to Moscow, he didn't want to answer. It figures.

Bah, humbug! at Barclays Capital

Barclays Capital has cancelled Christmas. An e-mail has gone around from Rich Ricci, who runs BarCap, as well as Barclays Wealth and BG Investors, saying that “annual Seasonal parties” - don't mention the “C” word - will not take place this year, other than for children. It's not that they can't be afforded. They “might be seen as inappropriate by any of our stakeholders”. BarCap won't be the last.

Work and play: Flavio Briatore

Flavio Briatore, the Italian playboy who took over Queens Park Rangers with Bernie Ecclestone and Lakshmi Mittal, was on CNBC's The Leaders last night talking about his appoint- ment to run the Renault Formula One team in 2000. Did he have any interest in the sport? “Not really, zero, basically,” he replied. “I was not a great fan of motor sports.” Was that a problem? “When you're a commercial director, it's about the product, and a car from Formula One is just a product. It's not because you're a commercial director that you know how many pistons are in the car.” Briatore had no experience in retail when he launched Benetton in the US in 1979 either. “Eating a lot of chocolate doesn't make you a good managing director of Ferrero.”

— Congratulations to Neil Wearing from Oxted, who was competing in the City of London Orienteering Race at the Barbican when he came across two bag thieves. He chased them and tackled them both to the ground, retrieving a woman's handbag. One thief ran off but was caught by another competitor. As Wearing tells the local paper: “It was particularly unlucky for them to run out in front of me because before I took up orienteering, I was a keen rugby player.”

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