Business Diary: Hard act to follow at Paddy Power

Christian Woolfenden, unveiled yesterday as Paddy Power's new marketing director for the UK and Ireland, is a good hire for the bookmaker, having worked wonders at Bacardi, where he is currently employed. But will he have anything to do? Earlier this year, Paddy Power hired Imogen Thomas, the model formerly famous for her stint on Big Brother and latterly better known for her links to Ryan Giggs, to front its marketing campaigns – despite some scepticism about the strategy, the bookie says she's been a huge success, helping it to boost sales.

Muzzling the anonymous

It's all kicking off at FTAlphaville, the pink paper's popular blogs site, where administrators have told contributors that, henceforth, they will only be allowed to post comment under a single pseudonym (some of them log in under all sorts of names). It is far from clear what the crackdown is all about, since there's no suggestion any funny business has been going on, but it is fair to say that Alphaville's users are not entirely happy about this perceived attack on their right to free speech – 80 whingeing comments already, and counting.

Early start for moaning bankers

It's not often we say this, but spare a thought for the bankers. The Independent Commission on Banking is due to publish itslong-awaited final report on 12 September at 7am – but it is aware the banks themselves will need a bit of time to think about their public response to the proposals, so it's giving them a sneak preview at 5am. That means an early start for Bob Diamond and co – or at least their minions – and some serious speed reading to get the complaints ready in time.

DSK receives an IMF send-off

We reported yesterday that Dominique Strauss-Kahn has made a visit to International Monetary Fund headquarters in order to say goodbye to his former colleagues. Now news reaches us, courtesy of Dealbreaker, the Wall Street gossip site, that DSK got quite asend-off, with staff in a packed auditorium breaking into spontaneous applause. We're not too sure about Dealbreaker's headline though: "IMF employees give DSK the clap".

businessdiary@independent.co.uk