Mr Pollen, you may recall, was one-half of Vallin Pollen, the PR firm that went bust in 1991, although Mr Pollen had left two years earlier. The merger is happy news for Mr Pollen and Ludgate chairman Tim Trotter, as they share a love of equestrian matters, particularly three-day eventing. Mr Trotter can't wait to have a crack at a course Mr Pollen has in the back garden of his West Sussex home, which makes you wonder just how large his garden is and how much PR top brass pay themselves 'It's a farm, actually,' he says. 'And when you have seven children, you need the space.' THE SAVOY is a little coy in the latest issue of its in- house newsletter.

Though the 20 pages are packed to bursting with gripping yarns about the new-look Claridge's and a feature on learning how to swim at the Savoy, there is not a single mention of a far more important event, the departure of managing director Giles Shepard. 'We never put departures in the newsletter,' a Savoy spokeswoman sniffs.THE GREY suits are going into hiding at City lawyers Allen & Overy after the firm's decision to enter an Alice in Wonderland float in the Lord Mayor's Show next month Partner Christopher Walford has been elected Lord Mayor. The firm has asked for volunteers to dress up as Alice, the Mad Hatter and Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Senior partner BillTudor-John has already made it clear they can count him out.MICHAEL Preston, one of the founders of Sterling Publishing, whose list includes the toff's bible Debrett's Peerage, sold his remaining holding yesterday for a not-to-be- sneezed-at pounds 600,000. Cash perhaps for his newish telecoms venture in the US, Long Distance Direct?YOU'D expect a housing market guru to have the savvy to buy his own house at the right time. But Rob Thomas, the new UBS housing man who took over from John Wriglesworth last week, has had mixed fortunes. Last year he bought a smart house in Surrey Quays in London for half the price it fetched in the boom.

However, he bought his previous house at the height of the property boom in 1989 That one didn't do at all well.. THE VICTORY won yesterday by the names in the Gooda Walker case against 71 Lloyd's of London agencies is a more sweeping victory than many of them can have dared to hope. The judge, Mr Justice Phillips, has in effect accepted the names' arguments that the agents who put them into Gooda Walker acted negligently. Mr Justice Phillips' 146-page judgment sets out his reasons for finding that the names' affairs had been handled negligently by the agents who placed them on the spectacularly loss-making Gooda Walker syndicates 299, 298, 290 and 164. His assessment of the underwriting carried out by these particular syndicates in the group chaired by Anthony Gooda is damning. His analysis goes further, however. In laying down some principles by which Lloyd's underwriting should be governed, his comments will encourage names on other syndicates whose cases have yet to come to court - particularly those involved in the same kind of business as the Gooda Walker group.This was excess of loss on excess of loss insurance, otherwise known as XL on XL or 'spiral' business.