Jonathan Grundy, the Morgan Stanley banker who advised Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas on its £1.4 billion acquisition of part of WMG, the waste management group, chose to describe the intricacies of the industry on his mobile phone outside the Israeli Embassy. That prompted an alarmed reaction from security guards, who demanded to know why he had spent more than five minutes on the phone loitering outside. They obviously don’t know how complicated waste can be.

Easy does it

Easy Group, the orange gang owned by Sir Stelios Haji- Ioannou, wanted to register easy.com as a trademark. But Sir Stelios’s company had to fight off a High Court challenge from Easynet, owned by BSkyB (the broadcaster 38 per cent owned by News Corporation, parent of The Times). The phone-cum-media company wanted to show that Stelios was not the only big easy in town — but was it really worth it?

Martin Read, the chief executive of Logica CMG, is a brave man. The computer geek moonlights as chairman of the remuneration committee at British Airways; when asked by a shareholder why Willie Walsh and other senior executives were paid so much, he said: “My concern is that they may not be paid enough.” Willie Walsh’s £887,000 for half a year’s work doesn’t seem too mean to me.

Office politics

DECISIONS, decisions for Sony BMG, the record company that may have no right to exist. While the European Commisson is reconsidering the merger that led to its creation, executives have to work out whether they can run the business as usual. What about the plan to take nice new offices on the site of the old Derry & Toms department store in Kensington (that’s the building with the Kensington Roof Gardens)? Unfortunately, a ten-year lease has already been signed, for the third and fourth floors — 100,000 sq ft at £42.50 each. Now get out of that.

Dodge, the carmaker, said that it was returning to the UK for the first time in 30 years at the London Motor Show yesterday. But a slick presentation was marred for the press by the failure of Kate Beckinsale to turn up. The actress was scheduled to unveil the new Dodge Nitro Chrysler Sebring. DaimlerChrysler, which owns Dodge, will have to hope that this no show is not repeated at dealerships across the UK.

Please Mr Postman

NIGEL NEWTON, chairman of the Harry Potter publisher Bloomsbury, complains that the postmen sometimes send mail from the next door offices of Sir Paul McCartney’s business. Supposedly, this includes the odd statement from Goldman Sachs. But it hardly seems a hardship; you’d just open it, out of curiosity, wouldn’t you?

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