City Diary: Housebuilding tycoon Duncan Davidson beefs up his comeback Hats off to BP director Professor Dame Ann Dowling. Yesterday morning it emerged she had spent £50,000 on 11,630 shares in the oil business - just hours before BP was suspended from winning new contracts in the US, denting the FTSE 100 company's share price. Timing, as they say, is everything. City Scrooges take the e-route City institutions are becoming ever-more Scrooge-like in their attitudes towards Christmas messages of good cheer. The British Insurance Brokers" Association has not bothered to send Christmas cards for several years, while the British Bankers" Association - which last year posted a card depicting the twelve nights of Christmas - now says: "Christmas greetings are not something we make a song and dance about. They are between us and recipients. HSBC, The Association of Investment Trust Companies and the London Stock Exchange have cut costs by going digital, meanwhile. "Electronic cards for us this Yuletide," says a stock exchange spokesman. Santander UK has a different approach, however. The Spanish bank runs a Christmas card competition, open to young relatives of all UK shareholders, where this year's theme was "Santander: an international bank at Christmas." The bank was hoping for a "colourful" design - but nativity scenes depicting global banks" more insalubrious past-times didn't make the cut. Instead, Ana Botin's team gave the prize to 13-year-old Siobhan Bailey and her flag-bedecked cake. Few takers for Tanzania with Sir Stelios absent British tourists can now jet between safaris in Africa and the beaches of Zanzibar at bargain basement prices, as low-cost African carrier FastJet makes its maiden flight in Tanzania this week. Pressed on the number of hacks who flew out from the UK for the airline's launch press trip, however, it turns out only "five or six" made the journey. "We kept the trip quite small because we are a no-frills, low-cost airline," a FastJet spinner tells me. Nothing at all to do with the fact that main draw Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, who allowed FastJet to license the brand from easyGroup Holdings, pulled out at short notice, then. To recap his trenchant thoughts on the "unauthorised" use of his name on the invitation: "I do not control [FastJet], nor am I on the board of directors. As licensor, I get a better picture from mystery shopping trips performed by my staff.