The City’s office choir kicks off LSE with “Let’s go fly a kite” from Mary Poppins
Stock market ceremonies vary from place to place, there are bells, buzzers and countdown orbs, but we’d wager none have ever kicked off a day’s trading with a song – until yesterday.
Stocks began Monday morning trading on the LSE following a rendition of “Let’s go fly a kite” from Mary Poppins – sung by the City office choir which features singers from various organisation including the Bank of England, Standard Chartered and AON Benfield.
Oh, and the choir were wearing bowler hats. With the bowler hat venue sitting right outside in Paternoster Square, you can see a real theme starting to emerge from the City of London Festival.
“[It] looks set to show everyone that the Square Mile is not as square as they think, and it’s particularly exciting to see so much singing in this year’s programme,” said Lord Mayor Fiona Woolf.
We’d like to see more Poppins classics at the market open – “Fidelity Fiduciary Bank” perhaps?
■ FRIENDS of the UK’s largest retailers will have a tough choice on their hands come 3 July (or a lot of running around to do). Sainsbury’s, M&S and Tesco are all having their Christmas preview/summer drinks parties on the same evening.
“We always have our party around this time, on their the Wednesday or Thursday. We don’t check externally when others are having parties – it would make it too hard,” a spokesperson for M&S told The Capitalist. It’ll certainly make it hard for those trying to get to the three parties. All of our Christmases really have come at once.
■ JUST IN case anyone is wondering whether Lord Browne, business’s LGBT hero of the moment, is planning to don a rainbow tutu and some fake eyelashes at this Sunday’s Pride London Parade, we can confirm the former BP chief won’t be there. “I’m doing one or two events this week for Pride but I don’t think I’ll be there on Sunday. You can’t get to everything,” he told The Capitalist. “Although it would be fun,” he added with a hint of a smile. Lord Browne was conducting a Q&A session about his book in Facebook’s brand spanking new offices on Brock Street, with the OUTstanding network. As well as enjoying the talk, The Capitalist spotted BP’s diversity team rummaging in the huge (and free) sweet shop for jellies. “We haven’t had any dinner,” they whispered.