There were a few questions raised by commentators, not least on these pages, over the unexpectedly jaunty note of the figures from Virgin Atlantic last week. These purported to show a profit of £68.4 million. “Somewhat amazing,” says one commentator who is not without an interest in the matter. He is Keith Williams, chief financial officer at British Airways, wheeled out to give the Virgin figures a good kicking in the BA newsletter — the first time, in my experience, that a bean counter has been asked to analyse in public the accounts of a rival.

Mind you, they really don’t like each other. The profits are “entirely attributable” to a gain from the strength of the dollar that has yet to be crystallised and may not even arrive, Williams says, uncharitably. I make no comment. “Despite its hyperbole, Virgin emphasised that the current environment made it ‘almost impossible’ for airlines to make a profit,” Williams concludes.

“Our own survival depends on us removing costs quickly,” he adds. Which is clearly the real message that BA staff are to take away from his analysis, I imagine.

Fight night at the Troxy — no chainsaws please

The curious hobby of various City professionals of battering each other senseless in their spare time seems to have lost some of its allure in recent months — perhaps they all had better things to do, like find new jobs or try to display some enthusiasm for their existing ones. But there is a soirée planned for next week at the Troxy on Commercial Road, at which 14 traders, bankers and other idiots will be allowed to batter senseless people from other walks of life, including cab drivers and, it says here, tree surgeons (I wonder if they get to use a chainsaw?). Is this resumption of hostilities yet another green shoot?

No fairytale complete without the Priory

I am suspicious. We read everywhere that the unfortunate Scottish woman who achieved instant world fame by singing a bad song fairly well was rushed to the Priory in North London. Yet when I interviewed Philip Scott, who runs the business that owns the Priory, last summer, he made it clear that the anonymity of “guests” was of the greatest importance. Even he has no idea who is in at any given time. The news that Susan Boyle, who is obviously ill, was deliberately taken there was clearly not released by his people, then.

It had to have come from someone else. The Priory is a famous brand name, the Harrods of rehab, but it is not the only psychiatric clinic available. If you were constructing in advance a media-friendly trajectory of overnight fame, collapse into madness, recovery, bestselling album, wherever this story is going, it’s the Priory brand you would want in there, isn’t it? In whose interest might it be to construct such a story, I wonder?

— A telling observation from Mark Brumby, who e-mails his thoughts on the drinks and leisure industry to interested parties each morning. Without meaning to be flippant, he says, he is seeing rather more requests recently from readers who want his e-mail sent to their Google/Yahoo!/btopenworld address rather than their work one. This suggests a lot of jobs going somewhere. “Mergers may be causing the most losses but cost cutting appears to be endemic across the board.”

— A City contact rings. Did I know that the Liechtenstein Royal Navy had done rather well in the Dragon Boat races in Hong Kong? Improbable but true — this tiny Alpine state is, of course, landlocked. Not that it stops Bolivia, but that’s another story. The Liechtenstein Princely Navy, research suggests, is nothing to do with the country but made up mainly of bankers who enter boat races for charity. Strange world.

Judge for yourself
In the blue corner: Robert Gerber

In picking the judge to preside over the bankruptcy of GM, they seem to have gone for the right man. Robert Gerber, described as one of the best judges in his district in New York, already has experience of Chapter 11 cases, such as Adelphi Communications and Lyondell Chemical, the bust US arm of LyondellBasell, the chemicals company.

Famous for not allowing lawyers to get away with too much in court, he described a document relating to a disputed loan as “one of the most outrageous provisions I’ve seen in 40 years of practising law”. He stayed up until one in the morning on the first Lyondell hearing to make sure that everyone got their say and has banged the heads of hedge funds, squabbling over who gets what. “When my nine-year-old asks me what I do for a living, I say, I decide inter-hedge fund disputes,” he has said.

— Do you have a diary story? city.diary@thetimes.co.uk

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive