City Diary: The Sun splashes on new offices

“Arrived Gascony to taste the '13 vin rose. All 200 bottles had exploded. Too tragic for photo.”

Sir Christopher further reports he is seeking solace in surviving bottles of his ’12 red.

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There’s no shortage of payments start-ups queuing up for investment to help them revolutionise, disrupt, evolve and generally re-imagine the way we exchange tokens of value for goods and services. Most of them are run by hard-bitten finance industry veterans or members of the heavily oversubscribed Silicon Valley chapter of the Ayn Rand fan club. Not so the Ethical Brand Foundation, which says it aims to make integrity pay with the “world’s first ethical/debit credit card”.

The team behind it are aiming to launch in November via a crowdfunding effort due to close next week. Alas the project will not reach its goal of 10,000 supporters in time, we understand, so will continue to seek backing after the deadline. Our ethical warriors are not discouraged, however. “Evidently, the market simply requires more time to understand the concept,” they say. Evidently… good luck.

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Airlines are forever coming up with new ways of wooing high margin business and first-class customers. The latest wheeze from British Airways lands on our desk via the trade publication Business Travel News. It informs us that the flag carrier will soon allow customers in the posh seats to pre-order their meal to allow for a wider choice than is available by selecting in-flight from whatever is in the hostess trolley.

It all sounds marvellous, although it is reported that such a service has been tried before with limited success. “The problem is that the airline’s customers have either forgotten what they have ordered once on board, or would like to change their mind,” it says. That does sound like a problem.

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