Column Eight: Troubled waters in oil

What is it with oil companies? First, Texaco introduces random drug testing for all its UK employees. Now I hear that Conoco trusts its staff so little that it has warned suppliers to be on the lookout for Conoco employees who might try to solicit bribes.

Conoco (UK) chairman Michael Stinson has written to suppliers alerting them to 'that rare Conoco employee who may be inclined to solicit a supplier for favours to himself or a third party.'

He has also set up a telephone hotline - confidentiality assured - for suppliers wanting to shop corrupt Conoco buyers.

'It's routine,' insists a Conoco spokesman. 'It's certainly not the case that we've suddenly been struck by a corruption problem and we're asking suppliers to grass on our employees.'

As European leaders gather in Edinburgh, Paul Neild, chief economist with County NatWest, has been rooting in the vaults of the British Museum. There he has unearthed evidence of the futility, as he sees it, of trying to achieve monetary union.

Exhibit A is a coin produced by the Royal Mint in 1867 in preparation for Britain joining an earlier union with France, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland: 'One Franc' is printed on half the rim, and 'Ten pence' on the other half.

In the end Britain pulled back from the brink, says Dr Neild in a research note which features the tell-tale coin. History shows attempts at union end in failure. 'There've been so many attempts. The first was in Charlemagne's reign 1,200 years ago.'

John Wriglesworth, an analyst at stockbrokers UBS- Phillips & Drew, is the undisputed guru of building societies in the Square Mile. His encyclopaedic knowledge, not to mention his infamous league table of performance, have made building society bosses tremble.

Now he faces a small revolt. Peter Welch of consultants Multi Strategies, an arm of Malcolm Hurlston's PR empire, plans to publish a report on the industry, questioning Wriglesworth's methodology and coming up with a very different league table. The report will be published next month.

Meanwhile Welch is going through his conclusions with a toothcomb, only too aware of P&D's penchant for writ-flinging.

Marcus Plantin reveals what it takes to be ITV's all-powerful network director. In the latest edition of the Independent Television Commission's magazine Spectrum, he is asked to enumerate his TV sets.

'One in the living room,' comes the reply, 'one in the other living room, one in the bedroom, one in the 'den', and one mini-portable that lives in my briefcase.'