City and Media Diary No silence from the lambs, but no slaughter

Peter Fincham will have had a difficult time tucking into his cornflakes on Thursday morning. To mark 100 days as chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons gave interviews to various papers. "Do I personally think it was reasonable to check something that was so newsworthy? Yes I do," Sir Michael told 'The Times', referring to Fincham (right) showing the mis-edited Queen documentary promo to journalists. "And that is the question I and the BBC continue to ask." Gulp! But if Fincham then turned to the 'Telegraph', he would have found his cornflakes far more palatable. "Let's be clear who's responsible first," says the chairman. "We don't rule out further disciplinary action. But I personally do not want a few sacrificial lambs pulled out and slaughtered in the belief that we'll all feel better as a result."

WHat will David Giampaolo, the chief executive of elite private investment club Pi Capital, have to report on his return to his St James's Street offices next week? "There's always someone in first class on the LA to London flight," says Giampaolo, a regular commuter over the 6,000-plus miles, and amateur people-watcher. Stephen Fry had a couple of drinks and went to sleep; everyone's favourite Beatle (then still with Lady McCartney) played sweetly with his young daughter through the flight - and Mick Jagger (right) drank fizzy water and spent the entire time tapping at his laptop. Very rock'n'roll...

Being good at maths has never been more valuable. A record [pound]1m was earned by the UK's best-paid economist last year, according to the Society of Business Economists. The unidentified individual works in asset management, but economists typically trousered nearly [pound]100,000 last year. This explains why the Bank of England, whose Governor Mervyn King earned a modest [pound]283,564 in 2006-07, is worried about an economists' brain drain to investment banks and hedge funds. But current panicky markets may see them moving in the opposite direction.

Kevin Beeston, the executive chairman of Serco, the [pound]2.5bn turnover services company, ascends to non-executive nirvana at the end of the month. He is to become an unpaid director of Ipswich Town Football Club. It is this which has made his mum proudest of her Great Yarmouth-born son. Beeston has some "16,000 Ipswich Town kids involved in football in community programmes. You want them to be wearing an Ipswich Town shirt rather than a Chelsea or a Manchester United shirt," says Beeston - whose two sons are both, erm, Chelsea fans...

as summer finally arrives, so does the silly season. London's 'Evening Standard' splashed a story sighting Lord Lucan, this time in New Zealand. Remember 'The Sunday Telegraph' summer of 2003 "sightings" of Lord Lucan in Goa? He turned out to be "Jungly" Barry Halpin, the Lancastrian folk singer. Keith Dovkants of 'The Standard' was to debunk that story. But debunking your own Friday- edition story?

This week, Rupert Murdoch has been a little defensive about the 'Wall Street Journal' deal. "I spent the better part of the last three months enduring criticism normally levelled at a genocidal tyrant," wailed the little media mogul. 'Vanity Fair' gave him a fantastic write-up, but contributing editor Michael Woolf did admit to inside info, through a reporter on the 'New York Post'... his, er, daughter.

Trenchant endorsement for Boris Johnson from Sir Max Hastings. "Behind all the flummery, he is a shrewd and thoughtful man, which could make him a decent mayor," writes Sir Max in 'The Guardian'.

"He would be a poor cabinet minister, I think, because detail bores him - as it does Livingstone. But he has the brains, commitment and fundamental decency to run London. He would bring gaiety to the mayor's office, and there is plenty of room for it." All very odd when you consider that when Hastings was editor of the 'Evening Standard' he ran an editorial criticising the Henley Tories for choosing Johnson, whom it roundly denounced as a "Bertie Wooster" character.

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