City Diary: Lord King's not banking on £1m tax bill for the tennis

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What is it about restaurants in south-west London?

First, Diary learned that Georgina’s, the Barnes restaurant owned by fund manager Nicola Horlick, was not to yummy mummies’ taste. Now it emerges that Greg Wallace, the Masterchef host, has lost almost £300,000 after his Putney eaterie, Wallace & Co, went off the boil last month.

Sadly, only Wallace’s creditors, who have presented a bill for £93,000 after the business went into voluntary liquidation, will be forming an orderly queue.

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A senior moment by Just Retirement Group’s non-exec, Les Owen.

As others in the City rush to sell, sell, sell shares in the annuity provider after George Osborne’s Budget bombshell wiped 42pc off its value , Owen has increased his stake by almost £75,000.

Buy low, sell high and all that. But Diary fears that Owen, who bought the shares in the name of his wife, Valerie, could be playing an extremely long game.

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What could be a more daunting speaking engagement than appearing before a Treasury select committee?

According to Margaret Cole, PwC’s general counsel and the FSA’s former chief enforcer, it’s addressing an audience of 150 14 to 15 year-olds, which she did yesterday through the Speakers for Schools scheme run by the BBC’s economics editor, Robert Peston.

Diary is a big fan of Ms Cole, of “hide of a rhino” fame . But her latest educational insight may need fine-tuning.

Her wisdom to the children was: “Where you start may not be where you finish.”

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Diary isn’t one for salacious gossip. But a liaison between two board, or ‘bored-of-being-married’, members of one City firm that will remain nameless is worth passing on, if only for the lady in question’s job title. She works in Corporate Affairs. “She wasn’t meant to take it literally!” says a mole.

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David Buik, the poetry-loving Panmure Gordon markets commentator, has gone slightly “off piste” with an event at Gibson Hall in Bishopsgate tomorrow.

In a break from reporting on the City’s “dreary struggle”, he will compère an evening of motivational speaking, designed to help those in the frontline of financial services rediscover their “drive”.

The inspirational speakers are all ex-military, who will tell their stories of overcoming severe injuries sustained in combat in Afghanistan. It puts stock market skirmishes into perspective.

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Lancastrian fridge magnate John Roberts usually gives Eton and Oxbridge-educated types short shrift.

But the founder of online appliances retailer AO, who said he would “rather stick pins in my eyes” than have dinner with David Cameron, has made an exception for blue-blooded Rothschild.

At the weekend, Roberts said the bank earned “more than every penny” of its controversial £12m fees for advising on AO’s recent float.

You know, the £1.2bn listing that made Roberts half-way to being a billionaire overnight.

Funny, that.

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harriet.dennys@telegraph.co.uk

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