Business Diary: Trump's tales of drunken bankers

Billionaire Donald Trump isplaying with us. "There's a banker – and obviously I'm not going to mention names..." he told Piers Morgan on his US chat show this week.

"I'll never forget a very respected banker, highly respected. And he was making a speech at the Waldorf Astoria. And he was very tipsy, very – and shortly thereafter, he was just totally stone-cold drunk. There were probably 2,000 people, 1,500 people at this dinner. It was a very big event. And we carried him out on his back. We carried him out literally on his back and I never felt the same way about him." Come on Donald, tell us his name.

Virgin promises you a rose garden

Bless the good folk at Virgin Atlantic, the airline bringing romance to Britain by the plane-load. Virgin reports that it has imported more than 15 tonnes of flowers, mostly roses, from Kenya to Britain this week in preparation for Valentine's Day, with demand from the florist trade up 44 per cent on the same week of last year. The question now is whether the nation's lovers will justify florists' confidence by putting the faltering state of the economy to one side for a day.

Finance lessons going for a song

Have you come across www.divisionoflabour.com/music? It's a website dedicated to helping economic teachers get through to their students using the power of song lyrics. Take The Clash's Should I Stay or Should I Go? – as the folk behind the site point out, what better way to explain that "economic theory states that rational decision-makers weigh the marginal benefit one receives from an option with its marginal cost, including the opportunity cost". The song even spells out the benefits and the costs of the rational decision in question – "If I go there will be trouble, if I stay there will be double." Genius.

Boredom that is set in stone

Now, this is in no way to do down one of Britain's mostsuccessful industries, but the award for the most boring title for a press release so far this year has to go to trade association British Precast. Here it is: "British precast concrete products industry raises the bar on standards, safety and sustainability." You need to work on the pitch, guys.

businessdiary@independent.co.uk