By Jonathan Russell, City Diary Editor Published: 10:29PM GMT 19 Feb 2010
Last weekend 20 high-flying economic hawks said "large" and "now" on Friday 50 doves suggested "small" and "later". The interesting thing here are the names.
Leading the hawks we have Tim Besley, professor of economics at the LSE and former Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) member.
Ozone hole over Antarctica covered area size of North America Conservationists hunt elusive US earthworm Saving village ponds: bring in the pond rescuers Britain chided by Brussels for ballooning government deficit Ancient lake found on MarsOn the side of the doves we have David Blanchflower, also a professor of economics and another former member of the MPC .
The thing is there"s history between these two. Back in September last year Blanchflower wrote in his New Statesman blog how Besley came to him in 2008 cap, or perhaps calculator, in hand, and admitted he had been wrong about not cutting rates earlier and that Blanchflower"s more dovish stance was right.
Rates were cut and the two were on the same team for a while. Obviously, not any more.
Which leaves us with just one question, who will be writing the valedictory blog this time?
Mr Payne and his licence to drillThe corporate imagination knows no bounds, another mailbox full of crafty company names for you.
I"m informed of a carpet-fitting outfit in Bognor Regis called Easy Lay Carpets; a home-cleaning firm in Sussex called Dunn and Dusted; a hairdressing salon in central London called Ryan Hair (in fact, it"s just outside Telegraph Towers I never realised) and a grocer in Bristol called Melon Cauli. Here"s hoping things have cheered up for them.
And to finish on we have a dentist from Cheshire called Mr Payne, and apparently he in lived in a house called Toothacre.
Sometimes you just have to take this stuff on trust.
Getting to know your limitationsHats off to the scribblers at stockbroker Charles Stanley for adopting the best headline so far on the Greek financial crisis, "Acropolis Now".
You may have seen it in these pages earlier this week and we"re only too pleased that they"re keen readers.
Shapps" energy rating goes off the scaleThe Tories are having a terrible time with numbers. First it was the misplaced decimal point in the teenage pregnancy figures that caused such delight in the Labour Party, and now I understand that Grant Shapps, shadow housing minister, has joined in.
According to a report in Building magazine, sharp Shapps recently wrote to his opposite number John Healey demanding to know what percentage of domestic energy certificates have had an energy rating of "more than 450".
The answer wasn"t too difficult to work out it"s none. The scale only goes to 100.
