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In these anxious times, amid fears of financial meltdown and pressure on bankers to prove their social utility and dispel popular loathing, Euromoney is heartened to sit down with a whey-faced senior banker in the week before Christmas. He has done well to make the early appointment, in fact his second after a client breakfast, having spent the small hours of the morning pleading with security at the venue for his firm’s Christmas party.
"One of our guys [Euromoney will, of course, protect his name] kept doing that thing ... what do you call it?" The banker raises both arms above his head and mimics diving. It’s an odd sight for such a senior City figure.
"Crowd surfing?" Euromoney ventures.
"That’s it. He kept diving off the bar into the arms of his colleagues. I had to plead with security three or four times not to throw him out."
"Sounds a touch excessive," suggests Euromoney.
"To be fair to him, he’d just been promoted and one of his deals had been made deal of the year," says his boss. "The trouble is he’s such a big bloke."
The old spirit of the City lives on then. That’s good to hear. But Euromoney will consider adding to its next deals-of-the-year submission guidelines a discreet query on the body mass index of bankers involved.