At BP, they had the demonstrators in yesterday. Protesters from Greenpeace arrived at the St James’s HQ in London to present Tony Hayward, the chief executive, with the first annual “Emerald Paintbrush” award for “greenwash”, or posing as being environmentally friendly.

Hayward, sensibly, wasn’t there and the protesters, dressed for some reason in dinner jackets, say that BP’s security guards threw them out. “No we didn’t,” says an indignant BP staffer. “Some people arrived. They tried to present this green-painted brush on a stick, took some photographs and left quite peacefully. None of us were aware of it at all until they actually left.”

Greenpeace was criticising BP’s ad campaign that emphasised its commitment to green energy while still extracting hydrocarbons and said that it had “obtained a presentation which reveals that the company allocated 93 per cent [$20 billion]” of this year’s spending to oil, gas and fossil fuels. BP is unimpressed. The “presentation” was drawn from the company’s own releases and guidance for analysts. “Absolutely none of it is anything other than public knowledge.”

Celebrations cancelled down at the crematorium

Ping! An e-mail arrives from “an amused funeral director”, and you don’t hear from one of them too often. At a recent meeting at a crematorium owned by Dignity, the quoted company, there was grumbling about the cancellation of staff Christmas parties and gratuities this year. Mention was made of the £3 million the family of the outgoing chief executive and chairman-to-be Peter Hindley raised by selling shares recently. “There’s been no directive from central office,” says the firm. “It’s up to the local field directors.” Fair enough; but are times really so hard for funeral directors, which I always thought were recession-proof? And with all this flu going around?

— As most visitors to the Woolworths closing-down sale will have realised, there isn’t much there that you can’t get for less elsewhere. This is not stopping the queues around the block comprised of people who are convinced they must be getting stuff cheap. As one shopper was overheard to admit at the weekend, surveying the pile of probably unwanted presents: “I’ve got my Woolworths’ goggles on.”

— Those of you absolutely determined to leave everything to the last moment might like to know that the annual Smithfield turkey auction is tomorrow morning. This has become a tradition at the market, which has been in existence on the site in one form or another since the 10th century.

Don’t panic!
In the blue corner: Arpad Busson

He may have been taken in, along with plenty of others among the super-rich, by Bernard Madoff, but it is hard to imagine that the wolf is at the door for Arpad Busson. Yet the hedge fund manager tells January’s Reader’s Digest that he has warned his ten-year-old son his privileged lifestyle is not guaranteed.

“I try not to scare him but these are historic times,” Busson admits. “He asked me if we were going to be OK. And I said: ‘Who knows? Nothing that we have should be taken for granted because everything may change the next day. We are living in a privileged manner, but that could disappear.’”

It seems improbable. In any event, the future Mr Uma Thurman says that he is pushing ahead with his sponsored City Academy schools, despite the apparent scepticism on the part of Children’s Secretary Ed Balls. “I like to say that Mr Brown is in charge. And Mr Balls is in Mr Brown’s Government. And it is Mr Brown who is running the country.”

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