The bankers' view of G20  

The Guardian has a report on some of the goings on at the G20 - The bankers' view of G20: an arresting bet for traders.

At Coq D'Argent, the restaurant atop the distinctive salmon coloured building at Number One Poultry, adjacent to Bank underground station, the bankers appeared slightly drunk on the excitement of the protests down below; basking in the sunshine, ordering wine and necking oysters.

Two traders based in an office opposite RBS on Bishopsgate said they had walked across the City "to have a nice lunch and chill out". Sipping coffee after three courses and a few Marlboro Lights, they were angry that the police didn't seem to be making any arrests: "Its kicking off over in Bishopsgate", they said. "The demonstrators are goading the police and hitting them with sticks, but they are just letting them. They aren't arresting anyone."

And these two wanted to see the long arm of the law carting a few protesters away – because they had a financial interest in arrests. "I'll make money if they arrest more than 140", he said. Traders, he explained were putting spread bets on the number of arrests – with the quoted spread on Bloomberg at 130-140. They were also paying out on deaths and if more than 20 demonstrators are injured by horse charges.

The riots, they said, were only a minor inconvenience: "We've been in this morning, made a lot of money and now are chilling out".

A waiter said the restaurant was busier than usual. One diner, Tim Robertson from the financial PR firm Cardew, admitted he had travelled in from Trafalgar Square to have lunch there in the hope of getting a glimpse of what was going on, although the restaurant had disappointingly closed the part of the terrace that would have given a birds eye view. You couldn't quite forget what was happening though, the constant drone of helicopters competing with the increasingly noisy bankers.

There were very few suits on show, but also very few convincing attempts to dress down. A Barbour and deck shoes is unlikely to fool anyone, even worn with a pair of neatly pressed jeans.

One corporate financier, dressed in a blue pin-stripe suit and red tie, with his hair slicked back in the style of Gordon Gecko, said he had dressed up "in an act of defiance". Had he gotten any abuse? "Surprisingly not," he said. "Everybody will agree with some of the things that they are protesting against but they way they go about it is a little misguided."

Quite a number of people at his bank had stayed home and others dressed casually he said "but I don't see why I should be intimidated. At the end of the day I have a job to do and you have to be professional about it."

Bob Morris at Polizeros is wondering how it was that the RBS building which got damaged on the day was the only one that wasn't protected in the area (in spite of being a much more obvious target than many other boarded up places) - RBS was only unprotected business in the area. I imagine the media coverage would have been a lot more boring if there weren't some broken windows to show.

The RBS bank in London that had their windows smashed was the only unbarricaded business in the area, which is highly odd, especially considering how hated RBS is there now. Plus, apparently there were no police around, but lots of media.

Gosh, it’s almost like the authorities wanted the attack to happen.