Now, here is an interesting fact. Bernard Matthews hired a crisis PR specialist “late last summer” to advise on how to cope with a possible bird flu outbreak, according to a trade magazine. Why would Bernard Matthews, known for the pristine conditions in which its birds are kept, feel the need for such advice a while back? We will never know, because the executive at Hill & Knowlton isn’t returning calls. As part of a pompous interview in which he boasts about how well the PR campaign is going, Tim Luckett explains: “There is a brand recovery strategy to be implemented.” They really do talk like that. This was before yet more bad news at the weekend. Tim, the Bernard Matthews brand looks to be heading the way of the Turkey Twizzler. Get over it.

“Building a portfolio of AIM stocks can be compared to ordering fugu in a Japanese restaurant,” says Anthony Scott, an AIM expert at Charles Stanley, the broker best known for having provided rather a lot of Lord Mayors.

It is an arresting soundbite and I detect the hand of Brian Mairs, who used to be at the private client pressure group Apcims before switching to Stanley last year to raise its profile. Fugu is, of course, the species of blowfish that, improperly prepared, sees off a number of unlucky Japanese diners each year.

Investing on AIM is not quite that risky, if you avoid mining stocks. For some reason Scott’s employer is keen to provide a picture of him as well as of said blowfish and so, unless there has been some terrible production error, there he is up above.

An exciting opening for someone in the leisure sector: The Queen’s Club is seeking a chief executive. The club, the host of the Stella Artois Championships, has been run by the Lawn Tennis Association but is in the process of being bought by members for £35 million. Chairman Alexander Anton tells me there are ambitious plans for more courts, a proper gym and possibly a health club and spa. A six-figure salary, and all the tennis you can watch.

Analysts were entirely in the dark about the MyTravel-Thomas Cook merger. Literally so; the briefing was caught up in the power cut that hit the Holborn area. “No lighting, presentation or mics,” says one scribbler.

NM Rothschild has been severely slapped across the face by the Takeover Panel for misbehaviour while advising BT.

That would be the same Rothschild where Richard Murley, who I remember from his time flogging off the electricity industry, arrived late last year after a spell running the, er, Takeover Panel, would it? Embarrassing.

My note about Midland Bank’s catastrophic purchase of Crocker of California raises a historical footnote from a reader. Another bank to expand aggressively on the West Coast also came to grief when the property market took a downturn. This was the Honkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation of California, probably the longest name in banking history, set up in 1955 by HSBC, ironically the eventual purchaser of the Midland.

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