L.p Dancing, Bear & Other Gossip

Much merriment on learning that securities trader Stephen Chang is suing an exotic dancer who, in the middle of giving him some serious lap dancing attention, allegedly swung round and accidently poked him in the eye with the heel of her shoe!

The incident is said to have occurred last November at the Hot Lap Dance Club near Madison Square Garden. It has not been revealed which firm the unlucky Mr Chang works for, although there's no truth in the rumour that he is employed at Bear Stearns - now that would be really unfortunate.

And talking of Bear staff, many are said to be mighty miffed that those JPMorgan types, who have been all over their firm like a rash this week, are even having the audacity to share the facilities in the Bear cafeteria in New York. It seems that Bear staff can't even drown their sorrows with a morning coffee without having to endure giddy JPMorgan staffers in their new playhouse.

Finally, rumours were also doing the rounds Thursday that Bear's New York bosses had started kicking JPMorgan staff out of the premises, after someone said that Bank of America had tabled a rival bid for the firm. Our sources tell us, however, that this must just be a case a wishful thinking, as no such incident did take place.

Finally, MarketWatch reports that very few SocGen staffers appear to have left the firm following that $7.1bn rogue trading scandal. Not surprising - why turn your back on a likely decent redundancy cheque!