Business Diary: Roussos to rescue in Greece

Greece, your problems are over. France Dimanche has found the perfect man to lead you out of these dark times: step forward musical superstar Demis Roussos. "I'd love to serve my country," Roussos tells the newspaper. "I already see myself as an ambassador and if someone were to ask me, I could see myself as a minister." Roussos even has a master plan for a new export strategy based on "truffles, olive oil, and Aegean natural gas". Now if we can just persuade Nana Mouskouri to serve too.

And lo, Sir Richard was amongst us

Sir Richard Branson is hardly renowned for his modesty, so maybe we shouldn't besurprised by the "Nativoty" calendar – Tivo, geddit? – that arrived from Virgin Media yesterday, on which the bearded one stars as the Archangel Gabriel. In fact, thinking about it, what'sreally surprising about Virgin Media's production is that Sir Richard hasn't been cast as the Messiah.

Pidgley collects another gong

Our congratulations to Tony Pidgley, one of Britain's best-known (and least-corporate) businessmen. Berkeley Group, which Pidgley founded and still chairs, is today crowned the most admired company in Britain in the annual awards run by Management Today magazine. The award is well deserved – Berkeley seems to have been immune to the housing market collapse that has hit Britain over the past three years or so. And Pidgley himself is always entertaining.

Ryanair sticks it to strikers

Memo to Britain's border staff: does Daniel de Carvalho need a bit of special attention next time he visits the UK? De Carvalho, a spokesman for Ryanair, yesterday belittled the border workers' strike. "We now call on Unison to admit their failure to disrupt passengers and end this pointless strike, at a time when UK visitor numbers are down and UK border staff have less work," he gloated.