Did I really make merry on the subject of divorce last week? I've just spent the most wonderful bank holiday with my family and am now feeling a twinge of mild remorse. My wife, whom I would never dream of divorcing, came with me for a long walk on Sunday, even though the forecast was horrendous. She fought her way through torrents of rain without the slightest murmur of complaint. By the time we got home, her skin was blue from the cold.

My God, I love that woman.

Divorce

I felt a shiver of vicarious pain at the news that the £48m award against John Charman has been upheld by the appeal court - not for the man himself, you understand, but for his banker. Many is the time I have watched assets disappear from my clients' portfolios just because they were foolish enough to be caught with the babysitter or (actually more common) riled by years of nagging into demanding divorce. While my clients would rage at the wickedness of women in general, I would be silently rueing the loss of management fees in particular, as I expect is Charman's banker today. £48 million could be worth over £500,000 a year to a private bank.

But perhaps we're coming at this the wrong way round. Perhaps we private bankers should accept and exploit the reality of the new English status quo - the recent rulings that make England the most "wife-friendly" divorce regime in Europe. After all, for every loser there is a winner, and there are a lot of ex-wives out there who are newly independently wealthy. 160,000 divorces a year: quite a few of those must involve significant lump sum pay-outs. Don't these women (or men in the odd case, I grant you) need the services of a reliable private banker?

It smacks a little of ambulance-chasing, but really we shouldn't be shy of this business. I dare say plenty of bankers have already contacted Heather Mills in hungry anticipation, and we ought to be following their example with less prominent windfall wives.

But then why stop there? How about actively generating new business through this channel? The method would be straightforward: identify those enormously wealthy men who have somehow resisted all advances to take up one's banking services, and invite their wives to a few soirees populated with handsome young gigolos. Sow a little discord in the marital nest, remind the husband that pre-nups hold no water in England and that the courts usually tend towards 50:50 divisions, then invite him to settle the matter amicably over a glass of cognac.

Have I gone too far? I feel the bank holiday looming, and I'm feeling irresponsible...

Cure

My psychotherapist has decided the root of all my evil is money. I thought she was joking, but it seems not. My conscious and subconscious thoughts are apparently too steeped in the financial for me to live a healthy life.

She told me to change my profession.

I said I couldn’t afford to.

She said I had to learn money isn’t important.

I suggested in that case we could dispense with her sizeable invoices.

She told me to find something in life that was completely detached from money. She told me I need a project that will take my mind off pounds and dollars and euros for a few hours each week.

That way, she assures me, lies my salvation.

Dress code

Just been to see my tailor.

There seems to be a perception among people I meet at Sunday lunches around Sussex that the City is full of immaculately-suited gentlemen with bowler hats and furled umbrellas straight out of Mary Poppins. True, the denizens of the Square Mile are still a great deal more smartly dressed than most of the population, but that’s hardly saying much. Insurance brokers, fund managers, market makers, a lot of them don’t bother to do more than pull a couple of high-ticket suits off an Armani rack and treat them with the same level of care they’d show a football sock.

My tailor hasn’t entirely understood the deterioration in standards either. Though his custom must be much reduced, his conversation suggests he still thinks I am typical of my breed in my sartorial concern. ‘About time you had a new suit or two,’ he said this afternoon. ‘Got to keep you looking smart for your clients.’

I haven’t the heart to tell him the wealthiest people on the planet go to work in jeans and t-shirts. The only clients who still care how I dress are those whose fortunes are in rapid decline. Hardly worth trying to impress them.

Offshore Banking

I've been ruminating on the suggestion by Professor Alan Blinder (poor fellow: A. Blinder - no wonder he never got the top job at the Federal Reserve) that millions of high-skilled US and UK jobs might be effectively outsourced to cheaper staff in India and China. He has focused on accountants, computer programmers and lawyers, but why not bankers too?

Certainly our Back Office could all be sent to Bangalore, as could most of the Middle Office. Those various consultants that have been inflicted on us over the last few years always long to consolidate the equity and fund research teams that are currently scattered across the world. Why not replace them altogether with a cadre of Chinese brains accessible via broadband?

But then we come to the core of the business. Could my job be done by a bright young Indian graduate based out of Mumbai? On the face of it, that seems a ridiculous proposition. This is a trust business, we all cry. Clients demand long term relationships with their private bankers. They want to be able to drop in at any moment and chat about their portfolio over a superior glass of claret. Doesn't that protect us, at least, from the Blinder effect?

I wonder. Quite a few of my clients now communicate with me almost exclusively by email and telephone. That's how they like it. I may go and visit them once a year to reinforce the relationship, but that could just as well be done as part of a grand annual tour by that young Mumbai fellow. Not great for his carbon footprint, but probably much cheaper than keeping me on.

I'm not too worried about my own job. This isn't the fastest-evolving sector of the banking industry, and I only need a few more years. But it might be another reason to discourage my son from following in his papa's venerable footsteps.

I'd be curious to hear views from bankers of all stripes. Are any of you concerned about your long-term prospects?

Did I mention I’m seeing a psychotherapist? She asked me yesterday to rank the ten most important things in my life, and when I’d finished with children, freshly mown lawns, Bordeaux and so on, she said, ‘What about money?’
It hadn’t occurred to me to mention money. ‘Obviously that’s top of the list,’ I laughed.
She didn’t laugh. ‘That’s so sad,’ she said, meaning it.
She’s Jewish and lives in Hampstead and thinks I have an unhealthy relationship with money.
I’m starting to wonder.

What extraordinary things we have learnt about Lord Browne today. But is it true he doesn't drive? How refreshing to hear that of an oil CEO.

To be honest, I'm rather saddened by the whole miserable business. It seems such a stupid coda to a great career. In ten years, will we remember anything else about him?

Pity the giants. Their weak spots are such easy targets.