A room full of bankers in New Bond Street

Above: as we left we were given goody-bags.

Last Thursday, while students rioted in central London smashing shop windows and attacking cars, I was in a room full of bankers in New Bond Street. I used to get asked to these events all the time as I have a few "financial" clients I do freelance work for. Then the financial crisis began and all the invitations dried up.

So I suppose it is an indication of economic buoyancy that the entertaining has begun again.

This was a reasonably lavish event, held in an upstairs room in offices along New Bond Street. All the time I was there I was ushered, attended and "minded" by what could be described as British salarymen - polite, solicitous, but all the time selling the company to me. I wasn't left alone for a second.

The room was a large double cube, completely filled with about a hundred guests - mostly men but with a few women, almost everyone dressed in dark suits. At one end was a startlingly beautiful string trio of blonde young women playing snippets of classical music. At the other end was a table serving Taittinger champagne (not that you needed to go near the bar, glasses were continually replenished by waiters moving among the guests).

Through the guests moved waitresses with platters of canapés - honey-glazed sausages, vol-au-vents, Thai chicken with a peanut sauce.

I was introduced to various people and listened to their incomprehensible conversation: "the Russian money used to come through Iceland..." "inshore, offshore, that then becomes inshore again..." "he is one of the Collins Stewarts..."