Column Eight: Home, home on the dales

JOSHUA Tetley, the brewer that sponsors the crumbling English cricket team, has played on to its own wicket in York. It invited readers of the Yorkshire Evening Press to come up with an appropriate name for a new pub, situated on land formerly part of a Second World War RAF base.

Among the 493 responses, the most popular suggestion was 'The Halifax', after the famous bomber. However, Tetley decided to call the pub 'The Memphis Belle', despite that name being suggested by only five readers.

According to a brewery spokesman: 'The pub is built on land leased from Warner Brothers, who made the film Memphis Belle, it's close to Warners' multi-screen cinema, a bowling alley and a fast-food takeaway - all American ideas.' How patriotic.

WHAT is happening at Hoare Govett, the stockbroker recently taken over by the Dutch? Last month it got rid of some of its small companies team. Now at least two of them have been offered their jobs back.

LEAFING through a copy of the ES magazine of London's Evening Standard one comes across an attractive full- page advertisement for a four- bedroom house with attached flat in Chelsea. The price: a mere pounds 950,000.

Who owns this fine family home? Kevin Maxwell perhaps? None other than Anthony Hilton, managing editor of the Evening Standard. One hopes he negotiated a reduction on the pounds 8,000-a-page advertising rates.

WATCHING Agassi's Wimbledon victory, a familiar face appeared in the front row on Centre Court. It was none other than Nigel Stapleton, the finance director of Reed International. Boning up on his backhand, no doubt.

TI GROUP, having taken over Dowty, appears to be boning up on defence matters. It has appointed Sir Colin Chandler, the chief executive of Vickers and former head of procurement at the Ministry of Defence, as a non-executive director.

WHO SAID recently: 'My crystal ball is no better than any other, which is why I made it clear from the outset that the key requirement for BP in the Nineties was the management of surprise'? None other than Bob Horton, the ex-chairman whose fellow directors took his words rather too literally.