LAURA SLATTERY peruses the week in business

The Numbers

25-30 - – the average number of minutes that users spend on the site each time they visit. Well, it takes a while to both upload photos and think up witty captions.

300 million – the number of people who now use Facebook, the social networking behemoth has declared. That’s one year ahead of target, apparently.

Good Week

NYLON

The New York to London air route (code name NYLON) used to be nose to tail with jumbo jets ferrying suits and briefcases to the other side of the Atlantic, but ever since the business-class seats were drained of hundreds of thousands of laid-off investment bankers, it’s all gone a lot quieter for the two financial capitals.

Cue an announcement by Michael Bloomberg and Boris Johnson, New York’s and London’s respective mayors, of a new tourism agreement, which will see the two cities’ tourism agencies exchange outdoor advertising space . . . so 71 New York bus shelters will persuade New Yorkers to visit London, while 250 Tube posters will tell Londoners to hotfoot it to New York.

Bad Week

Heels

In a move variously described by the British tabloids as “the height of stupidity” and a “killjoy” intervention by the “shoe police”, a motion was passed at the Trades Union Congress in Liverpool demanding that women have the right to wear comfortable shoes in the workplace. In other words, employers such as airlines and retailers shouldn’t be permitted to enforce heels on female staff as part of their dress codes – especially if they’re not going to pay for the inevitable podiatry bill.

However, the motion was gleefully misinterpreted as an attempt to get sacred stilettos banned from workplaces on health and safety grounds.

Quote of the Week - "We will not go back to days of reckless behaviour and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses."

- On the anniversary of the Lehman Brothers failure, Barack Obama warns Wall Street that “history cannot repeat itself”. So no Nama 2 then?