Big Splash
THE Stock Exchange is preening itself for getting its name in the papers — not difficult, you would have thought, these days. A fat report has gone out to mem- bers, telling them about all the articles and broadcasts which marked the first anniversary of Big Bang, eight days after Big Crash. Three articles (says the report) were written in the name of the chairman, Sir Nicholas Goodison, and placed with various publications — one in the Times, thus saving the Exchange the £5,280 which it would have had to pay to put it in as an advertisement. The Times should take example from Sir Patrick Sergeant, who once in my hearing turned down the pleadings of a hopeful publicist: 'You are asking me to do for nothing what our advertising department exists to do for a considerable sum of money.' As for the pseudo-Goodison article, perhaps the readers did not notice the imposture, or perhaps they did not mind. It was, I believe, Haydn who counselled: 'Do not despise the sonatas of archdukes. You never know who wrote them.'
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