Pembroke: Bath's brief brush-off

News drifts in from the West Country that the genteel city of Bath has missed out on a racy retail opportunity. American Kristina Bonfield runs Body Aware, a mail order company that specialises in raunchy underwear for men, including stockings, suspenders and silky briefs.

Ms Bonfield, who insists that her ranges are aimed at straight men, had hoped her first shop might help to woo conservative chaps away from bulky Marks and Spencer pants and introduce them to the delights of her range. But, she tells me, shop rents in Bath were too high. She is opening her first shop in San Francisco next month instead. 'I might take a short-term lease on a UK shop in the run-up to Christmas,' she says teasingly.

So British Airways won't be flying Concorde to Paris on its 75th birthday after all. The airline had planned to mark the occasion on 25 August by using the craft on the London- Paris route, which the company's original flight travelled in 1919. But it has decided to cut prices instead. 'Concorde can only take 100 passengers and on such a busy route we decided it wasn't worth it,' BA says.

History will be in the air, so to speak, on the big day. In 1919 the first passenger's cargo included a brace of grouse, clotted cream and a bundle of newspapers. BA hopes to include all three as props during the anniversary. It has not yet decided how. But rest assured it will involve the ever-willing managing director Robert Ayling somehow.

Embarrassment for Bayer, the chemicals group. It has been ordered to pay pounds 20,000 to Video Arts after the management training video group once led by John Cleese took legal action over copyright infringement. Video Arts claimed that Bayer had supplied pirated copies of sales videos to a health authority conference. Tut, tut.

The Athenaeum Hotel in London's Piccadilly is celebrating its 21st birthday next month, where the celebrations will be built around a 1973 theme. It has invited companies that floated on the stock market in that year, which intriguingly include Sainsbury's and William Low, the Scottish supermarket group Sainsbury's failed to buy earlier this month.

Invitations have been extended to David Sainsbury and James Millar, the William Low chairman. 'We thought they might have quite a lot to talk about,' chirps an Athenaeum spokesman. Neither is expected to show up.

Visitors to the Science Museum in London are being offered the chance to test their skills as train drivers on state-of the-art technology. The museum denies the scheme is sponsored by Railtrack as a means of training new talent after the rail strike. The virtual reality train ride through cyberspace is actually sponsored by Eurotunnel.