Credit crisis diary: The sweet taste of a global recession

Cadbury is one of the few companies sitting pretty in the current economic climate, benefiting as it does from the theory of "choconomics" – basically, that people spend more on little treats when times are tough. So enamoured with the idea are senior executives at the choccies company that they've coined a new phrase for the financial crisis. The credit crunchie, they're calling it.

Oh come, all ye faithful

Now that Anthony Bolton, stock picker extraordinaire, has stepped back from full-time fund management, he has a little more time to devote to his other interests. So it is that Fidelity, Bolton's employer, is inviting people to an evening of Christmas carols next month, all composed by the great man himself. No longer the silent assassin, then.

Surely some mistake?

So shocked were City traders by the Bank of England's dramatic 150-basis-point interest rate cut yesterday that a rumour was doing the dealing room rounds within minutes. Fat fingers had come to the Bank, the gossips said, and the MPC really only meant to offer up a half-point cut.

If at first you don't succeed...

Fresh from its battle with Tesco – difficult to characterise as anything other than a big win for the UK's favourite supermarket – The Guardian has come up with a new wheeze for exposing the taxation shenanigans of large companies. It has sent an extensive questionnaire on corporate taxation policy to all FTSE 100 companies, accompanied with a threat. HM Revenue & Customs categorises all companies as high, medium or low risk on tax avoidance, and the newspaper has told everyone that they will be exposed as high-risk if they fail to respond to its questionnaire. Unfortunately, Footsie bosses aren't daft – their PR departments have organised a mass boycott of the survey. They'll presumably all be damned together, then.

A cut above

Apologies to the nation's hairdressers from the Diary. Yesterday, we highlighted a plea from the industry's trade body for a cut in VAT on haircuts and got its name completely wrong. The body in question is, of course, the National Hairdressers' Federation.