Pembroke: Blackpool split on golden greats

I hear a petty squabble has broken out in Blackpool over centenary celebrations for its Eiffel-like tower. The tower is being painted gold for the occasion. But the town's advisers have fallen out with each other over who should apply the finishing brush strokes. An outside public relations consultancy hired for the event wants a 100-year-old local woman to do the necessary on Wednesday. But the tower's internal PR people want to team her up with Steve Cram, the Geordie athlete, who is in Blackpool this week to run the Golden Mile for charity.

The external agency has lined up GMTV coverage while the tower's team would prefer to get local media on the case to help bring in the punters.' We are busy rowing about it at the moment,' laughed one tower insider.

Stockbroker NatWest Markets has introduced the language of the dealing room into one of its recent circulars. A note on Leigh Interests, the pollution control company, dismisses recent speculation that Leigh is a bid target. 'While we anticipate industry consolidation over the coming months, in this specific context we would agree with the reaction from Leigh: 'absolute b**@]s'. SELL.'

There were red faces at Bayer, the German chemicals company, yesterday after it was forced to recall some suspect mosquito repellent. The company makes Baygon, a vaporising element which gives off a smoke the mozzies don't like. Unfortunately, a faulty batch of last year's production is prone to do a bit more than give off some vapours. It may go up in flames.

Anxious to prevent gently snoozing campers being engulfed in flames, Bayer has recalled the product in six European countries. British mozzie-haters needn't bother rummaging through the bottom of their wardrobes to check their kit. Baygon is not available here.

Capital Radio dragged itself back into the equal opportunities line yesterday when it appointed Anne Ferguson to its all- male board. Ms Ferguson is a former head of corporate communications at ICI, and a member of Opportunity 2000, the campaign to improve the prospects of women in the workplace. Ms Ferguson, who is also on the board of National Power, is not the first woman to grace Capital's boardroom. There were two others a while ago: Dame Shirely Porter, of LBC and Westminster Council fame, and Class Act Joanna Lumley.

The nosh was predictably good at Bentley's, the 75-year-old Piccadilly restaurant, yesterday for the launch of its new dining club. The pounds 225-a-year club is aimed at the diner keen on a bit of special treatment.

As well as regular wine tastings and gastronomic gatherings, the club pledges to try to reserve members' preferred tables and rustle up their favourite dishes on demand.

Bentley's is expecting a few celebrities to sign up for the club, although it says it already has a minor one on the staff.

General manager Josie Davidson, who joined from the Roux Brothers group, once had a cameo role in an episode of the legal comedy Rumpole of the Bailey. 'I think that makes her a startlet,' says a colleague.

(Photograph omitted)