Oil and Vinegar mix it in PR world

Reading the Mr Oil and Mr Vinegar restaurant review in FT Alphaville’s members-only Long Room site, a review of Le Caprice catches my eye – in particular, the following passage:

MrO: I’ve always loved it here, since my first visit in 1985 with a very pretty woman who flirted most outrageously with me.

MrV: Did you get anywhere with her?

MrO: No, she was a PR woman and I was a journalist so she was being paid to flirt. I phoned her a couple of weeks later to ask for a date and she didn’t remember who I was.

MrV: That’s PR people for you. Ghastly collection.

Messrs Oil and Vinegar should know. In their real lives the authors are those esteemed City PR people, Piers Pottinger and Damien McCrystal.

Breaking up at Breaking Views?

I hear talk of upheaval at Breaking Views and the mutterings are that a buyer is sizing up the business.
Perhaps my clever young friends at Alphaville would benefit from the expertise that Hugo Dixon and his rapidly changing team could bring them.
I think we should be told.

Blackstone finds the best things in life are free

The Financial Times is suing private equity giant Blackstone, claiming the US investment group shared one FT.com account login to avoid paying for multiple users.
Lawyers are predictably poring over lists of stories that Blackstone employees read, and I learn from one of my learned friends that over half the tales were from Alphaville - the pink 'un's award-winning financial blog, access to which is, er, free.