Ghostly sales in the cultural wasteland

CITY DIARY

Down to earth with a bump for Pat Barker, the Booker prize winner who took the pounds 20,000 purse against the odds on Tuesday night. The heady atmosphere of the Guildhall has gone flat for the novelist, who was seen yesterday apparently checking sales in the cultural desert that is London's Docklands.

"She was in here but we didn't recognise her,'' says a spokeswoman for Books Etc in Canary Wharf. Which is a pity. The bookshop had not exactly pushed the boat out on the promotional front and Ms Barker would have been hard pressed to find a copy of her masterpiece.

"This is nothing to do with not supporting the book,'' explains Corinne Gotch of Books Etc. "It is a case of living with the collapse of the Net Book Agreement. The window space is often used for price promotions, especially in the run-up to Christmas.''

The shop says it will be making a song and dance of the book, but that it wants to display the other two books in the trilogy. Unfortunately they are still on order. The sooner they arrive the better. Canary Wharf sales of The Ghost Road yesterday amounted to two copies.

With his mitts firmly on the Channel Five television licence, Greg Dyke feels the time is ripe to extend condolences to the losers. The chief executive of Pearson TV was yesterday seen lunching in Covent Garden with David Asper, head of the CanWest syndicate whose pounds 36m bid was roundly beaten by Mr Dyke's offer of pounds 22m. "They exchanged pleasantries and media gossip,'' said a close friend. "However, Mr Dyke made no offers on joint programming deals.'' Still, the two apparently got on so well that anything could happen.

Unparalleled gluttony at the Farmers' & Fletchers' Hall next Thursday, where Chester Boyd, renowned caterer and supplier of groaning tables to at least six City livery companies, gets to grips with the Beaujolais Nouveau. Unless there is a boycott over the nuclear issue this should be a respectable feeding frenzy.

Last year 500 guests consumed untold pots of caviar, 50 pounds of fresh salmon, 20 pounds of smoked salmon, 200 pounds of cheese and 100 yards of French bread. "If you laid the sausages head to tail it would have taken Linford Christie nine seconds to run the full length,'' burps a liverish liveryman.

Sir Tim Bell, the gloss merchant, will no longer want for Wimbledon Centre Court tickets, or indeed cross-Channel ferry tickets. His Chime Communications yesterday paid pounds 500,000 cash for Kensington-based KBH Communications which lists the All England Club and P&O among its clients. Well, it's probably cheaper than a debenture.

Rudi Giuliani, the Mayor of New York who has long had it in for insider traders and the Mafia, reveals his hand in the war against gambling. Horses and Wall Street aside, gambling is illegal in New York and Mr Giuliani proposes to launch an offshore gambling service which he reckons could earn the City $20m a year. The plan is for floating casinos to depart from Staten Island eight times a day, carrying 1,500 merrymakers, and cruise the three miles needed to arrive in international waters. "You pay to get on the boat and then lose your money out at sea,'' said an observer.

If the lunchtime session catches on in Wall Street Mr Giuliani may find that he has seriously underestimated the take.