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Business Diary: Monday 20 July

Monday 20 July 2009 00:00 BST
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New Aer Lingus boss faces tough enemy

Best of luck to Christoph Mueller, new chief executive of Aer Lingus. He's going to need it – while Aer Lingus has been crowing about the record of their new man in the European aviation industry, what he is really going to need is some street-fighting skills with which to combat Ryanair and its combative boss Michael O'Leary, who has made Aer Lingus Ryanair's biggest enemy.

Teenage scribble rules the roost

Much good cheer at Morgan Stanley, which last week published a research note on Twitter and other fashionable new media causes penned by a 15-year-old intern, Matthew Robson. Robson's verdict – teenagers don't do Twitter – went global, and now the bank has been besieged by feedback from youngsters all over the world, giving it the jump on quantitative research on the sector.

A bargain that could prove painful

Take care if you picked up a bargain at a car boot sale over the weekend. Counterfeiters seem to have given up faking sunglasses and trainers and turned instead to the PedEgg, right, a nifty invention costing about £20 to remove callouses from your hands and feet. Its American makers are so concerned about fake devices hitting the UK market at half the price that they've hired investigators to find the crooks behind them.

Santander to back two wheels as well as four

Now Santander is uniting all its UK brands under the one brand, it can turn its attention to the kind of thing financial services groups really worry about: what to sponsor. The bank already has a presence in Formula One, but rumour has it that it will launch its own professional cycling team this winter – possibly with current Tour de France contender Albert Contador as its leader.

Another war of independence looms

Check out our new favourite website, www.itsthesearstower.com, launched by Americans who are furious that a British insurance broker, Willis, has secured the naming rights to Chicago's famous tall building. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the issue, the US rage is hilarious.

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