Business Diary: Clubs blackball the bankers

"Excuse me, sir... but are you a banker?" These dreaded words may soon, discreetly but firmly, form the precursor for a gentle expulsion from some of London's finest clubs. Soho House, for one, is reportedly returning to its media and arts roots, and blackballing finance: "There is no strict anti-banker policy but our clubs are very much rooted in the creative industries. It's at the committee's discretion who they keep. Some people make the grade and some people don't." Well, as they say at the Groucho, tweaking their eponymous hero's most famous quip, would you want to be a member of any club that would have a banker as a member?

Zucker-scooper cleans up a mess

If the Social Network didn't fulfil your desire to find out more about Mark Zuckerberg, then you could point your browser to facebook.com/beast.the.dog. The site tracks the goings-on in the blessed life of "Beast", Mr Zuckerberg's mutt. The most recent update has Beast making Mr Zuckerberg pick up after him, to put it politely. "It was glorious," Beast reports. Maybe, though not all that, well, sociable.

The economics of a happy marriage

Some say he that he's terrified of ducks, and that there's an airport in Russia named after him. All we know is that Joseph Stiglitz, affectionately nicknamed "The Stig" in economics circles, has been discussing, with Mrs Stig, (Columbia professor Anya Schiffrin) Spousonomics, a new book by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson, that applies economics to relationships. The Stig said he didn't like "scorekeeping" in marriage. "It's unromantic!" he protests in New York Magazine. Then again, he has been married three times. He deserves another Nobel Prize, for services to matrimony.

Grigg is makin' a bad ting good

British Land boss Chris Grigg, 51, got down with it to defend the City, offering a passable imitation of Rastamouse. He told Bloomberg: "You can't keep dissing the banks and expect it to go unnoticed. Wh'appen?" He didn't actually say "Wh'appen", but the message to Mervyn King, Vince Cable and the other banker-bashers is clear – Makin' de Bad Ting Good: Give it up for boombastic British Land...

businessdiary@independent.co.uk