Bunhill: Old spies never die, they just lose the plot

IN THE absence of a Cold War, how's a spy to earn an honest living? The answer is industrial espionage, whose agents have been watching Smiley's People closely and stolen the rights to intrigue and conspiracy theories.

Earlier this decade the removal of secret car plans was at the centre of a mammoth legal battle between Volkswagen and General Motors. More recently, Gillette called in the FBI to stop details leaking of its new Mach 3 wet shaver, the "stealth bomber" of the shaving world.

But who needs the men in dark suits and shades when a classic tale of spy versus spy is unfolding in Mayfair, where a shop has somehow infiltrated our anti-PR network to unveil two products. Announcing that "98 per cent of competitive information is gathered through illegal eavesdropping," The Counter Spy Shop has come up with the CCTA 1100, a digital telephone tap detection system that both alerts you to bugs and tells you where they're planted.

Eavesdropping is a terrible thing, of course ... unless you're the one doing it. So why not look at another product, a surveillance camera system called the SpyCam 11? "Catch them in the act," exclaims The Counter Spy Shop. "Watch what's happening at the cash register, in the warehouse, at your desk ... whether you're across the street or across an ocean." Not only will you spotany skulduggery, but you'll be alerted if the system is breached. A bit like the CCTA, really, except that one form of surveillance is spying and the other is detection.

A number of questions arise. First, will intelligence gleaned through the SpyCam stand up? Like Alan Shearer, another victim of video evidence, the suspect could simply say that while it may appear he was bugging a phone, it wasn't intentional. Second, has The Counter Spy Shop got any products that will tell you you're being watched by a surveillance system called the SpyCam? Third, do we know that they know that we know that we're watching them listening to us watching them? And, as in any good spy thriller, exactly who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?

I admit it, I'm losing the plot here. But to the person who lifted my biro and post-it pad, I know who you are.

A COACHLOAD of investment bankers rolling up at the bingo hall ... you don't see that very often. But apparently you would have if you'd been in East Ham a short while ago, because thorough research is everything to the dedicated investment bankers of JP Morgan, which is doing some financial work for Gala Bingo Clubs.

It would seem that JP Morgan's employees belong to the school of method banking - they like to live the role - but maybe they were after something else. If 1997 was the year of the big bonus, 1998 has been the year of the big boot, with a swathe of job cuts at JP Morgan. So the cash prizes might well have seemed like glittering returns.

Imagine the scene: after indulging in a spot of debt leveraging and mezzanine finance to come up with the admission money, the bankers decide to recoup the cost by flogging junk bonds to other bingo players. Meanwhile, through a deft piece of front-end loading the balls are persuaded to come up with the bankers' numbers, and the caller doubles the prizes after being offered commission on each winning ticket. Then the prizes are restructured so that each one accrues interest at a guaranteed annual rate of 75 per cent until a redemption date in 2010, at which point they are converted into mansions with swimming pools and an honorary knighthood.

Finally, everyone goes for an expense account lunch at Mrs Miggins' pie and mash shop.

Red card

IF YOU were one of the millions of people who dialled the World Cup hotline in a fruitless quest for the 100,000 tickets available, you may have wondered who's been snapping up the seats for all the best games.

The answer could lie in the credit card that you held in one hand while frantically pressing the phone buttons with the other because MasterCard, one of the tournament's "Official Sponsors", is making 500 World Cup Final ticket packages available to cardholders who enter a series of competitions.

As the Official World Cup Bunhill, I am the only bona fide Bunhill accredited by football's ruling body for purveying wise prose. However, I haven't got any tickets, I can't offer banqueting facilities in the stadiums and I'm not even licensed to distribute those bizarre figurines of international footballers, one of which comes with a single body in an England strip and a choice of two heads. Think what they could do in real life if players had interchangeable heads - no one would ever get sent off.

No such restrictions on MasterCard, however. With a turn of phrase that did not hail from the terraces, it has unveiled The MasterCard World Cup Train Experience. On the day of the game the 500 lucky winners will head for Paris on a "special train" and be given the opportunity to "rub shoulders with celebrities".

But cardholders be warned: the transport comes courtesy of The Millennium Train Company, so be prepared to arrive in Paris 18 months late.

GOOD news for small businesses that don't have the money or space to employ a full-time receptionist. A company called Kendlebell has launched a specially designed phone service allowing remote secretaries to take business calls and run an office from their own homes.

This may be a great help to small-scale businesses, though conversations such as "Good morning, Maggot Incorporated ... Oh sorry, mum, it's you" may well be plentiful. And pity the businessman who calls in at reception in person only to be directed 30 miles up the road.

But, as Kendlebell says, cost is the issue - a point it underlines in capital letters by claiming that there is now an alternative to "PACKING CHEAP LABOUR INTO ONE SITE". Quite right, too: I always keep my slaves in the chimney.