A row has blown up in the usually tranquil backwater that is the actuarial profession. Members of the Faculty of Actuaries in Scotland and the Institute of Actuaries, which in any event have acted as if joined at the hip for some years now, have until July 23 to vote on a formal merger. There are more than 10,000 eligible to vote. The problem is that the merged body will be known as the Chartered Actuarial Profession and so the most qualified members, the Fellows, will henceforth be known as FCAPS, an unfortunate acronym if you pronounce it at speed.

“You might find that amusing, but some of us really don’t,” grumbles my informant, “Anxious Actuary”. A spokesman for the professional body admits: “I’ve heard a few people saying that. It’s not something we’ve been rushed into. It’s a big change and there will be people who are unhappy about it.”

A compromise has been reached. Existing members can deem themselves FFAs or FIAs, according to affiliation. New entrants will, indeed, be FCAPs. “If you feel like publicising this inanity as soon as possible, we would be enormously grateful,” says Anxious Actuary.

No accountants to save the world? Heaven forbid

Typical. You wait for weeks for a good story about accountants and then two come along together, like buses. Accrual World is a dystopia by Andy Blackford about a future where accountants are banned. The book is published by CCH, a specialist publisher owned by Wolters Kluwer, and depicts a world in which three chartered accountants, named “The Irreconciled”, defy the ban on the profession and fight back to battle the collapse of the financial system. As opposed to the real world, where accountants spotted the financial disaster that was looming and, by means of well-timed warnings, managed to head off the collapse of much of the financial system, of course. As I recall, things panned out differently. “A terrifying warning of what might have been.” Yup, you can use that quote from me on the dustjacket if you want.

In the shadow of Brunel

In the blue corner: Andrew Lezala

The past life of the former head of Metronet, the collapsed Public Private Partnership on the Tube, has returned to haunt him. The authorities in the Australian state of Victoria are under fire for allowing Metro Trains Melbourne to take over its suburban rail network.

The company’s chief executive is Andrew Lezala, who used to run Metronet. “The British auditor general has been very critical of the governance and leadership of that company,” says one opposition politician. “Mr Lezala led that company.”

Indeed. Mr Lezala once, in happier times, appeared to compare himself to Isambard Kingdom Brunel, saying in the company staff magazine that Metronet “might even be comparable to some extent” to the greatest engineer in our history.

As one critic waspishly remarked, Brunel merely levelled hills to create a railway from London to Bristol and built the SS Great Eastern, which no one thought would float. “At my local station, Metronet have been struggling for the best part of a year to replace a few tiles.”

— I am, worryingly, beginning to warm to Peter Mandelson, aka the Prince of Darkness, aka Lord Mandelson of Foy etc, etc. While every other politician seems to feel the need to issue gratingly populist statements on the death of the Prince of Pap, Mandy claims to have little idea who he was. “I’m not absolutely sure who Michael Jackson is,” he told an interviewer. “Is he the ... he’s called Jacko, isn’t he?” On an allied note, Jeez, what about Bruce at Glastonbury, then? What can you say?

— Angela Knight, chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, is joking about the abuse her members are getting. “Not surprisingly we receive a huge number of calls at the BBA, many of which cast doubt on whether the parents of some BBA staff are married,” she says. “There are those who make proposals we would have to be contortionists to carry out, as well as a few blind dates and one marriage proposal, but we never did know what he looked like.” Her two favourites? “ ‘How big a suitcase do you need to hold a million pounds?’, which we referred to the Bank of England, who referred it back, so we passed it to Wikipedia. The second is: ‘Could I speak to Mr Libor, please?’ ”

— Do you have a diary story? city.diary@thetimes.co.uk