Business Diary: Will Hugh watch Asda's cheapie chickens?

Asda has potentially risked the wrath of ethical food groups and the celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall by launching a £2 chicken promotion. The Wal-Mart-owned grocer – which this month unveiled a transparency drive including web cams in its carrot washing and processing factories – said it would be prepared to extend the idea to the journey the £2 chickens make from farm to supermarket shelf "if our customers want them [the webcams] there". Diary is sure that Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall, who famously hijacked Tesco's AGM last year over cheap chickens, would be interested in such a show.

Bridget's flying high for UK space industry

Bridget, the British-built Mars Rover, is coming to the City to promote the UK space industry. The London Institute of Space Policy and Law is showcasing the EADS Astrium-built "test bed" of the vehicle that will be central to Europe's robotic rover mission to Mars in 2018. The Institute is hosting a seminar this Monday on the financial and commercial risk of space. Institute director and space lawyer Sa'id Mosteshar said Bridget won't feel as alien in the City as you would think: "Space contributes £6.5bn to the UK economy and is set to grow five per cent year-on-year until 2020." Not the last close encounter then.

McDonald's eaten by Iceland's credit crunch

More fall out from the credit crunch in Iceland. The country's McDonald's restaurants will be closed at the end of the month after the collapse of the krona took a Big Mac-sized bite out of profits at the fast-food chain thanks to the need to import ingredients. Well every cloud has a silver lining after all.

Ofcom catches Sky sponsors on blindside

Poor old Sky. In future it looks like the broadcaster is going to have meet the entire cost of the "Hawkeye" technology used to enhance its cricket coverage. That is because broadcasting regulator Ofcom has told the company that it gave undue prominence to Specsavers, which was sponsoring Hawkeye, during this year's Ashes coverage. It found the kit was "intrinsically part of the programme" and so could not be sponsored. A case of shouldn't have gone to Specsavers then.

Number of the day: 2.9 per cent

The growth in South Korea's economy in the third quarter of this year. Britain's contracted by 0.4 per cent.