TUCKED away in the small print of the Bank of England’s annual report is an intriguing footnote. The Bank made a €56 million contribution to the setting up of the European Central Bank, ahead of the arrival of the euro.

This was a proportion of the full contribution that the UK would have had to pay had we decided to join the single currency, so I suppose it can be seen as a down-payment on a potential involvement in the project that was never to be.

The investment is non- refundable — surprise, surprise — and does not pay any dividends, so the bank’s accountants have deemed its value to be zero. There is, I am told, just one benefit it brings. This is the invitation to the odd splendid lunch at the ECB in Frankfurt that Mervyn King, the Governor, enjoys. Even by the standards of EU hospitality, this is an expensive luxury.

A LOCAL parish councillor is objecting so strenuously to plans by Center Parcs to build a holiday village on the Duke of Bedford’s estate near Woburn, which is going through the planning process, that she has promised to tie herself to a tree ahead of the next meeting. Her name, by a pleasing historical coincidence, is Mrs Pankhurst — Julia Pankhurst.

Bank charge

NOTHING is too good for Perella Weinberg, the world’s newest investment bank created by Joseph Perella, former vice-chairman of Morgan Stanley, and Peter Weinberg, who used to run Goldman Sachs in Europe. I hear the bank has acquired an impressive new European headquarters.

This, as is the nature of things today, is in Mayfair, handy for all those hedge funds, rather than the City or Canary Wharf. The bank is paying a hefty £1.75 million a year for a 22,000 sq ft office block at 20 Grafton Street, developed by O’Callaghan Properties.

STANLEY FINK’S Man Group is making a big deal of its green credentials, a move surely unconnected with Fink’s outing in the tabloid press as one of the highest-earning individuals in the City. So Man employees will limit their “carbon footprint” on the planet by cutting down on waste, funding the planting of trees and travelling less.

At the same time I read that Fink has just splashed out on a 25th wedding anniversary bash at which 200 guests were flown on two specially chartered aircraft to Marbella. Er, how green is that?

Bridge jumpers

ANOTHER analyst has fallen out of the door at Bridgewell, the broker, just days before the shares start dealing on the stock market tomorrow. He is Charles Wilson, who covers leisure and is off to Citigroup. The numbers leaving, and the amount that had to be cut off the price to get the issue away, does rather confirm City rumours that there was not much in the flotation for the rank and file there.

And another earlier departure has just turned up elsewhere. Milan Radia, who covers tech stocks, has arrived at Jefferies in London. Radia tells me the problems at Bridgewell stem from the structure of the original financing, done by Bank of Scotland, which was done at such an inflated level that it was difficult for anyone to make any money thereafter.

city.diary@thetimes.co.uk

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