CITY DIARY

The canny Yorkshire food company Nordale is profiting from the fortunes of Leeds United football club. News that the team's top scorer, Tony Yeboah, puts his prodigious goal scoring efforts down to the discovery of Yorkshire pudding saw executives of Nordale scuttle to the phones to offer free puds to quench Yeboah's pudding passion.

Their offer is two free puds for every goal and one for each fellow team member. Nordale has now despatched a total of 132 puddings to Elland Road. With 11 goals already so early in the season, Ian Whitfield of Nordale tells me he expects a hefty bill by the end of the season.

Rupert Pennant-Rea and Rosalind Gilmore, who were yesterday appointed as non-executive directors to the board of BAT Industries, have both been embroiled in recent controversy.

Pennant-Rea stepped down as deputy governor of the Bank of England after admitting to an extra-marital affair, whereas Gilmore resigned last week from Lloyds after less than a year as director of regulation.

A BAT spokesman told me: "As a tobacco group we're used to controversy and unafraid of it. The two have got a big contribution to make, in spite of what may or may not have happened in their recent careers. And they are especially valuable because they know a lot about regulation in the financial services area."

Kate Murphy, international bond marketer at Nomura, plans to plunge off a roof today to raise money for the Motivation charity. She will be joined by 200 other like-minded professional women from the City, including Stephanie Field, director of asset trading at Lazard Brothers; Julias Baer, senior portfolio manager at Avril Griffiths, and Gillian Haseldon, a senior lawyer at Nomura. They will abseil 110ft down a nine-storey building in Finsbury Square. Royal Marine commandos will be on hand for those who need help getting over the top. " Making it an all-girl thing has definitely got the chaps to dig into their pockets," Murphy said.

Christopher Clement-Davies, divisional director of the specialist financing team within the corporate finance division at SBC Warburg, has joined solicitors Wilde Sapte to expand its major project practice. He will be reunited with Bruce Johnson, who joins from Linklaters & Paines where Clement-Davies worked before joining Warburg in 1993. While at SBC, Clement-Davies worked on the London & Continental railways consortium, short-listed for the pounds 2.7bn Channel Tunnel rail link project, and the modernisation of Russia's air traffic control system.

Abbey National, the title-holders, will face stiff competition from the likes of KPMG, Cazenove, Midland and National Westminster bank when they meet at next month's City Monopoly challenge. The event, which aims to raise money for Children with Leukaemia, is appealing for more teams.