The dastardly Mr Deedes

Bob Diamond announces he will mostly be listening this summer to Jay Z’s latest ditty 4:44. The former Barclays chief rarely misses a chance to affiliate himself with the often distasteful hip hop mogul. While at Barclays, he forked out £306m for the naming rights to the stadium of Jay Z’s (then) basketball team, the Brooklyn Nets. he’s also been photographed at one of his concerts imitating the rapper’s trademark diamond-shaped hand gesture. Bob is 65. Pathetic, isn’t it? Workers in Goldman Sachs’s City offices are perturbed to discover that, according to latest accounts, their Frankfurt colleagues are paid 13pc less than they are. It’s feared the 200 bankers Goldman claims it will relocate to Germany over Brexit will have their salaries rerated as a result. Average pay among Frankfurt staff is still £293,000, so perhaps we’ll hold the violins for now. Cadaverous TSB boss Paul Pester and his staff raised £36,000 for charity last weekend after competing in the London Triathlon. Fitness freak Pester, 53, who once trained with Olympic swimmer Sharron Davies, handed over an extra £5,000 after one of his underlings, Robert Sturges, beat him over the finishing line. Sturges, 48, is currently the banks’ head of migration strategy, though colleagues predict he’ll be manning TSB’s hendon branch by the end of the week. Glum bucket Deutsche Bank chief John Cryan has been shredding costs following that £5.5bn regulatory fine by the US government, but catering staff are maintaining fastidious standards. A recent visitor to its Frankfurt headquarters says cappuccinos in the staff canteen each come topped with powdered chocolate, sprinkled immaculately in the shape of the bank’s ‘slash-in-a-square’ logo. So German! Insurance giant Prudential has crafted a commemorative medal for this weekend’s RideLondon, the annual charity bike ride loved by cyclists if not the rest of the capital. To get your hands on one of the tasteful gold trinkets, you’ll have to complete Sunday’s 46-mile race. If not, I’m sure they’ll be available on ebay come Monday morning.