Column Eight: Mr Smith takes new shape

TERRY Smith, chief scourge of creative accountants, just won't go away. He popped up earlier this week at a do at the Dorchester hotel hosted by Harpur, the business services company, for whom he is to edit a monthly magazine called Breaking the Mould.

Mr Smith's association with Harpur goes back a long way - David Elias, chief executive, got his first loan from Mr Smith when the latter was a mere bank manager.

MORE from Terry - this time his attitude to using an earnings per share figure to measure performance: 'It's like black pudding - if you knew what went into it you wouldn't touch it.'

THIS charming picture of the Prime Minister's distinctive upper lip adorns the cover of this week's Economist. But if it looks curiously familiar to Today readers, that's because the newspaper filled most of yesterday's front page by cribbing exactly the same photograph and caption: 'Stiff enough?' Strangely, both disappeared from late editions.

Today is no stranger to, er, borrowing stories. A few years ago the Daily Express accused it of the practice. Today retaliated by attributing stories to a reporter named Jack Dawe.

(Photograph omitted)

CHRISTOPHER Lewinton, chairman of TI Group, is being distracted from tubes, seals and propellers by a smock and beret. Last night he presented the first pounds 7,500 TI Group Scholarship at the Royal College of Art.

An old chum of Jocelyn Stevens, ex-rector of the RCA and now controversial head of English Heritage, Mr Lewinton, 60, is said to regret his lack of formal education in matters artistic. To plug this gap TI now buys works from RCA students to decorate its Abingdon HQ.