Industry lunches and dinners can be a bit of a trial. Not being asked is an occupational hazard for a columnist – even by one's own paper. Financial News recently hosted the very successful Institutional Asset Management Awards in London's Connaught Rooms. The day after the event the editor called to regale me with some details of the characters that he had met there, and then asked why I had not been present. I had to point out to him that he had never asked me.

This week another industry dinner, another forgettable London hotel. In an attempt to liven up proceedings, I trailed off to a nightclub afterward with representatives from a leading retail company and the three brokers who had underwritten its gargantuan rights issue this year. By the time we had consumed the third bottle of Tattinger, I had worked out that one of my companions, an analyst on the sellside, was well known to a couple of the Girlfriends. I established that he works cheek by jowl with my Most Successful Girlfriend in palatial EC4 offices. But I was more interested to learn that Most Socially Acceptable Girlfriend had demonstrated a complete lack of observational skills. Many years previously she had contrived to set up this chap on a date with an attractive American fund manager – dinner at Le Gavroche. What she hadn't realised was that they were already in a relationship, and did not need her assistance to get together, so to speak. Oh well, MSAG. Better luck next time.