Pembroke: Returning a visit after 37 years

PERISH the thought, but a bunch of Russian nuclear scientists are about to get the full City PR treatment. The Institute of Physics and Power Engineering, which specialises in work on nuclear waste disposal and military conversions, is hitching up with Financial Public Relations of London.

The strategy: to bring the boffins to a wider audience. The other ruse is to promote 40 years of safe operation of what the Russians claim to be the world's first nuclear power plant.

It is a case of Russia revisited for Simon Preston, chairman of the PR company. In 1957 he was the first person to enter the Soviet Union by car after writing to President Khrushchev in a kind of Letter to Brezhnev but without the romantic interest.

I hear that while Mr Preston's visit last month lacked the same historical precedent it was not without its moments. The trip was to Obninsk, about 150 miles south- west of Moscow, which used to be a kind of secret town and until recently was not included on maps because of its nuclear operations.

As well as donning a space-age moonsuit for factory trips, Mr Preston was invited to a school for the gifted. 'After they had all done their party piece the teacher said they could all touch us on the way out as we were the first foreigners they had seen,' said Mr Preston. 'Fortunately they didn't'

HUMOUR editor required. Must be equipped with a laugh and a smile, plus plenty of guile. So runs the job ad from Carlton Cards in the sits vac columns.

Sounds like a fun job. Responsibilities include dreaming up poetic greeting cards and 'exploring new editorial directions'.

But Carlton Cards was not feeling very amused yesterday. 'I'm very busy and haven't got time to talk about it,' sniffed a testy staffer. In-house applications not necessary, perhaps.

NOMURA, the Japanese securities house, made a raid in the transfer market yesterday, lifting an entire information technology team from Credit Suisse First Boston. The team will be led by Geoff Doubleday, the 45-year-old techno- buff who masterminded the creation of a state-of-the-art dealing room for CSFB when it moved to Canary Wharf last year.

'We went for Geoff and he picked five other people who were interested in resigning,' explained a Nomura spokesman delicately.

No doubt the fact that Credit Suisse bonuses were banked last week made the exodus a little easier.

LOOKING tanned after a winter holiday, Stuart Lipton was back on one of his old Stanhope stamping grounds yesterday, pitching up at the Ludgate development in London to accept an architecture award. This just a few days after he learned that John Ritblat's British Land had bought 30 per cent of Stanhope.

'I know John. I've no quarrel with him. I'm waiting to hear from the banks,' he said, lounging over one of the metal sculptures outside the futuristic offices.

Accepting the New City architecture award from the Lord Mayor, he declined to say whether his tan was due to the Caribbean sun or the Alpine slopes (Mr Ritblat is skiing in St Moritz this week). 'You won't get any personal stuff from me,' he said. 'I keep me and my family out of it.'

(Photograph omitted)