It seems an awfully long time ago since I had a very pleasant lunch with Guy Naggar at the Chez Gérard restaurant at Tower Hill. Since then, the Dawnay, Day boss has sold the Chez Gérard chain and, to judge by his present woes, he may well have to sell a lot more of his assets to come through the other side.

Inevitably, the investment firm's fall from grace is providing plenty of fodder for diary columns. For example, a guest at this week's European Pensions Awards at the Grosvenor House tells me that there was no shortage of sniggering when the Risk Management Firm of the Year category was announced. The shortlist included Dawnay, Day Milroy.

There is also no shortage of relevant expertise on the Dawnay, Day board. Its website lists the deputy chairman as Brian Smouha, who as senior partner at Deloitte & Touche led the winding-up of Banco Ambrosiano and BCCI.

How to finish a deal: pull the plug, then pull a pint

Mark Sheehan, the managing director of Coffer Corporate Leisure, which advised on this week's sale of the Bombay Bicycle Club restaurant chain, provides a fascinating insight into the current financial climate. At another recent deal completion meeting, he was locked in a room with “the buyer, the buyer's bank, the buyer's lawyer, the buyer's bank's lawyer, the buyer's financial adviser, the buyer's private equity investor, the seller, the seller's lawyer and the seller's financial adviser”. But just as everyone was preparing to work through the night, the bank suddenly decided to pull the funding. “After 20 minutes, the meeting was terminated and we all went to the pub,” he sighs.

— Beer sales may be plunging, but the number of new ales on the market has never been greater. In recent weeks, I have received details of several new beers with an eminent provenance, including one from Lord Brocket, the celebrity peer, one from Laverstoke Park, the organic Hampshire farm owned by the former Formula One driver Jody Scheckter, and the latest one from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Samples seem to be in short supply.

— Tricky chaps, e-mails. A London jobs website has just mailed its corporate customers alerting them to “a major security update” on its website and inviting them to post any new vacancies they may have. Alas, the unfortunate functionary from “technical support” who sent out the missive forgot to hide the e-mail addresses, which when printed out run to some 30 pages of A4. I was going to spare the agency's blushes. But seeing as hundreds of people already know: it's London4Jobs.co.uk.

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