CITY DIARY: HSBC boss awarded prestigious Mexican honour despite bank laundering cartel drug money

HSBC boss Stuart Gulliver, has received Mexico’s prestigious Order of the Aztec Eagle

HSBC boss Stuart Gulliver, has received Mexico's prestigious Order of the Aztec Eagle

Gnome-like HSBC boss Stuart Gulliver, 58, has just received Mexico's prestigious Order of the Aztec Eagle, the country's highest honour awarded to foreigners. 

In 2012, HSBC paid a £1.2billion fine after it was revealed the bank had laundered billions of pounds for Mexican drug barons. 

And they said satire died when former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Addressing the European Central Bank yesterday, spindly Bank of England chief economist Andy Haldane, 50, remarked: 'Fifty years ago, the governor of the Bank of England would give one speech a year, to an audience exclusively made of white men, middle-class, some of them drunk. 

'And look at you today. Some of you aren't men, middle-class, and some of you are sober. How far we've come!' 

My source says: 'Haldane was very funny. Mark Carney never gets the ECB waxworks laughing like this.'

Leggy financier Amanda Staveley's rumoured interest in Newcastle United excites long-suffering fans of the club who can't wait to be rid of current owner, beer-bellied Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley. 

Staveley's now affectionately referred to on Tyneside as 'Wor Amanda'.

Inventor Sir James Dyson is suing his former chief executive Max Conze, 47, for allegedly leaking company secrets, which the icy German vehemently denies. 

Corporate espionage can be a very dangerous game. When the Russians tried to copy Concorde, MI6 are said to have fed them dodgy plans. 

The resulting aircraft, 'Concordski', crashed at the 1973 Paris Air Show.

Thrice-married, perennially youthful Tesla founder Elon Musk, who's recently split from temptress Amber Heard, tells Rolling Stone magazine: 'I will never be happy without having someone. 

Going to sleep alone kills me. I don't want to be alone.' With a £15billion fortune, surely poor, sensitive Elon, 46, can find someone to share a turkey with this Christmas?