Personal transport

One BMW-driving big noise in the industry could hardly contain himself recently upon hearing that Bridget McIntyre was being very 'right on' with her choice of personal transport. Apparently, Bridget's planet-conscious motor has more in common with a Moulinex blender than the traditional manly combustion-engine-powered cars - much favoured by alpha males in the industry. Our source wonderes if RSA has an environmental policy about company vehicles and would love to know if Andy Haste is piloting a washing-machine-derived motor these days.

At the other end of the scale, a little bird was Overheard citing a potential conflict of interest with the so-called 'broker barons' who recently took issue with the regulator over, er ... conflicts of interest. This being that all seven of the BIBA committee members all happened to belonged to Axa's market advisory group - a strange thing that, trilled Overheard's source.

Finally, in a twist on the offshoring debate, the Aziz Corporation claims those telephoning call centres would rather hear a Bangalore accent than a Birmingham twang. Aziz research found strong prejudice against some UK regional accents, with 79% believing a strong regional accent to be a disadvantage in business.