Business Diary: T-shirts that take you Becks to the boom time

There may well be a recession on, but it is clearly not bothering everyone. The Diary came across an email from UK fashion designer To-orist yesterday, which highlighted "a heavy selection of motif embossed t-shirts, compiled in a plethora of materials from overlaid lace and leatherette to Swarovski crystals". They look like, to put it politely, something one might have bought from Camden market in the 1980s. But, after David Beckham was seen sporting one, these monstrosities are actually being sold in high-end retailers in the capital at about £135 a pop. Nice work, if you can get it.

Site calls on workers to get cuddly with bosses

Another day, another tenuous PR stunt to raise a company's profile. This time a job website is campaigning for employees to get intimate with their bosses on Friday week for National Hug Your Boss Day. "If the answer is no, then perhaps the relationship needs to be readdressed". Hmm, would that be by searching for a new job, perchance?

Nixon called in to take on Wall Street's Gekko

An update on the forthcoming sequel to The Diary's favourite film Wall Street. The second instalment, centring on the now legendary Gordon Gekko and subtitled Money Never Sleeps, has secured a coup in signing up Richard Nixon. Well, not the man himself, obviously, but Frank Langella, the actor who received so many plaudits for his portrayal in last year's Frost/Nixon. Maybe director Oliver Stone thought playing Tricky Dicky would give Langella the wiles needed to go toe-to-toe with Gekko.

BT loses out in battle of broadband speeds

Poor old BT has had its fair share of challenges in the past year, mainly driven by the problems at its Global Services division. News of a ballooning pension fund didn't help and now more bad news. Ofcom shocked the market by announcing that consumers rarely achieve broadband speeds advertised, so Simplifydigital ran some numbers to find out the best companies on speed of service to value. Sky tops the table with £1.14 per Mb of speed, but bottom, with more than double that at £2.93 per Mb, was BT. It doesn't rain, but...