What can I tell you about the state of the City right now, that you don’t already know?

Given the Lehman-sized lay-offs, Merrill-style mergers, and stupendous losses funded by unwitting taxpayers, I’m struggling to glorify or glamorise my much-loved City – and it’s debatable whether I actually should.

I don’t need to tell you it’s a dire situation because you can’t turn a page anywhere without reading about it. I don’t need to tell you we’re broke, because Wall Street has made that abundantly clear with its pathetic pleas for help. What I do need to tell you is that, if nothing else, as long as we all have king-sized beds, the City continues to be categorically, unambiguously sexy. Yes, for all us slick City bankers in a funk, the new outlet for all that competitive energy from the trading floor is the bedroom floor.

An environment has emerged where boozed-up wisecracks, blind bravado and unchecked confidence now carry the air of incompetence, not achievement. But if there is one thing that can alleviate the misery of the financial tragedy unfolding before us, it is a fluffy, romantic comedy. And besides, there has to be somewhere for all that testosterone to go.

So, when those of us who still have City jobs are not handcuffed to our desks, we are handcuffed to bedposts, and those of you who have never stepped a toe inside the Square Mile are, naturally, avoiding the place like syphilis. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed that the sorry state of our financial world – where everyone thinks that he/she is so damned smart, and very few really do anything of consequence for anybody – doesn’t translate to our sexual worlds as well.

l suppose that effectively eliminates City boys from my sheets.