Business Diary: City sabotaged by Islington

Nervousness in the City, where the powers-that-be hope that City Week, scheduled to begin on Monday, will showcase the wonders of the Square Mile after some troubled time. They hadn't reckoned on Islington Council, however, which has chosen this week to resurface Chiswell Street, on the border of the City, and the location of The Brewery, which will host many of the City Week events. They swear they'll be finished by Monday, but if not, all the dignitaries the promoters want to impress will have to walk through a building site.

Goldman to laud its biggest critic?

For a number of years now, the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs have jointly promoted an awards scheme for the best business book of the year. Of the six books on the shortlist for the 2010 award, published yesterday, Michael Lewis's The Big Short looks to be the clear favourite. But will Goldman be prepared to hand over such a prestigious gong to Mr Lewis, one of its most vocal critics in recent times? If so, the ceremony should be fun.

Finance planning its fightback

Looks like the banks have found a big hitter to go into bat for them. Simon Lewis is the new chief executive of the Association of Financial Markets in Europe, the body that represents the interests of the wholesale financial markets. Mr Lewis is a former director of communications at 10 Downing Street, the first-ever communications secretary to the Queen, and has also had stints at Vodafone, Centrica, NatWest and Warburg. He should score some points.

Sky bashes the bureaucrats

To Henley Business School for an interesting lecture from Jeremy Darroch, chief executive of Sky, on the role of business following the financial crisis. Mr Darroch says the reckless behaviour of bankers must be curtailed, but warned against "saturation of regulation". "Too much bureaucracy drowns people to the point where they lose perspective on what really matters," he warned. A dig at Ofcom over its repeated attempts to cut Sky down to size?

businessdiary@independent.co.uk