City diary: Budget day. When is that?
Tomorrow might be a red letter day in Gordon Brown's diary but budget day isn't at the front of everyone's mind in the City. "When is the budget?" a perplexed Michael Spencer, boss of the broker Icap, was heard asking yesterday. His ignorance is understandable, given that the economics wonks are not expecting Gordon to produce any fiscal fireworks while he is so close, yet still so far, from the premiership.
· The sorry tale of Maiden, the outdoor advertising firm, might not be over just yet. Just days after Maiden's bankers forced it to accept a £10m offer from the US firm Titan Outdoor or go bust, the brash entrepreneur Simon Franks is threatening the deal. Franks' Redbus investment vehicle is buying up Maiden shares to block the sale. There is also talk that a US hedge fund has been sniffing around what's left of Maiden.
· James Packer has been discarding many relics of his father's era since Kerry died. The latest institution to go is the Hyde Park health club, the gym in the basement of the Packer HQ in Sydney. This is the gym run by Kerry's "special friend", Julie Trethowan. But James isn't doing away with every tradition - his polo team won the newly minted Kerry Packer challenge cup at the family's Hunter Valley estate at the weekend.
· A PR headache has emerged for the drugs industry after the US medical regulator found a possible link between pathological gambling and drugs to treat Parkinson's disease. The drugs reverse lower levels of dopamine in the brain that cause the tremors associated with Parkinson's. But high levels of dopamine are also associated with gambling addiction. Researchers are investigating whether these drugs are turning "some patients into obsessive pleasure seekers". Drug makers say that gambling problems in Parkinson's patients are more likely to be caused by the proliferation of legalised betting outlets.