The City Diary

Life is a carousel of fun: will BA’s ad sit well with the tarnished Terminal 5?

Dedicated followers of the Heathrow Terminal 5 fiasco will be tickled pink to hear that the virtues of the grand enterprise are soon to be coming to a small screen near you thanks to a new advertising campaign. British Airways has obviously decided that its "everything will be fine eventually" theme didn't quite give the level of reassurance today's savvy travellers require, and it will soon be pushing its message that "T5 is working, and it is working well". The Diary is assuming that the bag-deprived Naomi Campbell, left, will not be top of Willie Walsh's wishlist when they come to cast the ad's actors. Whoever stars, the campaign will undoubtedly cost a bob or two. So it's a pity that MPs on the Transport Select Committee recently heard that over 900 bags a day still don't quite make it.

Art for beer’s sake

You might want to take a closer look at this image. At first glance, it's a swan, isn't it? But, no, this is in fact the world's first duck rabbit – check out the nose at the back of this creation's head. This is one of four pieces of art that brewer Beck's has adopted for this year's limited-edition beer labels, which will feature on more than 27 million bottles from next month. The artist who came up with this freaky idea is the possibly slightly-warped Simon Cunningham. Previous emerging talents whose work has adorned Beck's include Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin.

David tipped to be Goliath of Reed Elsevier

News that Ftse 100 publishing giant Reed Elsevier has hired top headhunter Anna Mann to find a replacement for chief executive Crispin Davis, who retires next year, has set off a series of rumours in the world of media business. Some gossip-merchants are touting David Levin, chief executive of smaller rival United Business Media, as the most likely successor. An industry source points out that Mr Levin recently tried to create a Ftse 100 giant by merging with Informa – a deal that soon collapsed – and is known as being both highly ambitious and talented.

He won’t be fighting the credit crunch on the beaches

Deutsche Bank chief exec Josef Ackermann is fast becoming the king of the mindless comment in the face of market turmoil, but at least he's consistent. At an event organised by the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany, his mutterings on the credit crunch amounted to "We are at the beginning of the end and not the end of the beginning" – a line he repeated last week to the 'FT'. We're just not sure what old Winston Churchill would think.

The City puts on the green light

Mergers and acquisitions advisers are not known for their warm, fuzzy environmental spirit, but the credit crunch is set to have a very green spin-off. Research by Merrill Datasite found that M&A staff sent 98,000 tons of carbon bouncing around Europe last year, and used more than 112 million pages of A4 paper or 10,000 trees. But spending over £110m a year on flights and hotels is fast becoming a thing of the past as doing deals online looks increasingly attractive to those bottom-line boys. Now the City just needs to start turning its lights out.

Fags, booze and sex. Students never change

Its clear what the folks at Costcutter think of the UK's students, after data-gathering information was accidentally sent to 'The Independent' last week. The standard basket of goods around the nation's hallowed centres of higher education apparently include a heady mix of Rizlas, Marlboro cigarettes, Red Bull, condoms, Pro Plus, Paracetamol, Stella Artois, Hobnobs and, of course, Pot Noodles.

Knockdown price for Trump’s Palm Beach pad

Donald Trump was true to his name last week when he pocketed a reported $95m (£48m) for his Palm Beach villa – reputedly the highest price ever paid for a family home in the US – despite the decimated housing market. Although sub-prime victims will be reassured to hear it was $30m under the asking price, that shouldn't have mattered much to the new owner, Russian fertiliser mogul Dmitry Rybolovlev – the 59th- richest person in the world with a fortune of around $12.8bn. Trump, right, won't have any sleepless nights either. He bought the property in 2004 for only $40m.