GOOD WEEK: Not even the combined selling

£48.2m– pretax profit announced by Red Football Ltd, the holding company for Manchester United FC.

£31.8m– loss the club would have had to report if it hadn't netted an £80 million fee for selling Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: 

"If you asked my mother nad father about my pay, they'd say it was too high."

– Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester admits that even his parents think he’s overpaid.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK 2:

"There will be no discretionary bonuses at the Bank of Ireland. It is also not true to say that none of us have lost a penny."

– Bank of Ireland governor Pat Molloy tries to break down the “fat cats” versus “the dispossessed” dichotomy prevailing between the bank’s boards and shareholders-cum-taxpayers.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK 3:

"A form of thieving."

– Mr Justice Peter Kelly sums up the practice of using employees PAYE and PRSI deductions to subsidise the running of a business, in this case the insolvent Residence private members’ club on St Stephens Green, whose directors are Simon and Christian Stokes.

GOOD WEEK: 

Cabin crew

Tired of having to explain the drinks are not free on short-haul flights? Fed up with your employer’s insistence on doing more turnarounds than there are minutes in the day? British Airways stewards and stewardesses may have found the solution you’re looking for. Opting for what they call “passive resistance” against their employer, disaffected cabin crew have resorted to pouring vintage wine down the sink on the aircraft and throwing away unused washbags in protest at what they say is the airline’s “disregard” for their working agreements. Vintage wine? Yes, BA still does first class.

BAD WEEK:

Waterstone's:

Not even the combined selling power of Katie Price, Jamie Oliver and Dan Brown was enough to save the head of the boss of the book chain, one Gerry Johnson. The Waterstone’s managing director has left the company with immediate effect after an 8.5 per cent slump in sales in the pre-Christmas period – a performance that parent group HMV branded “unsatisfactory”. The plunge wasn’t simply down to fewer consumers snaffling “3 for 2” offers, but the effect of the beleaguered Borders group staging tasty closing-down sales during the biggest book-buying period in the year.

“Gerry Johnson and I agreed it was time for a change,” said HMV chief executive Simon Fox.