Business Diary:No self-respecting financial journalist these days turns down the opportunity to link the most spurious phenomena to the credit crunch, writes Tim Sharp

No self-respecting financial journalist these days turns down the opportunity to link the most spurious phenomena to the credit crunch, so it was pleasing to see research from Travelodge associating sleep deprivation with global economic turmoil.

A survey of 4000 people allowed the company to extrapolate that some 22 million workers (75% of those of us with jobs) are getting less than the recommended eight hours of sleep each night of the working week.

Topping the sleep deprivation poll are estate agents, who are only getting five hours and 50 minutes sleep a night as the housing market dives.

Lorry and taxi drivers were the next two groups missing most shut-eye as worries about rising fuel prices meant they enjoyed an average of just six hours and 16 minutes a night.

Third position was claimed by another economy-hit profession, bankers, who manage just six hours and 23 minutes of sleep.

Builders and accountants complete the top five, with both getting six hours and 24 minutes.

Leigh McCarron, who has possibly the best job title in the country as Travelodge's director of sleep, said: "It is no surprise that the professions in the industries worst hit by the credit crunch come top of the charts. We all know that money worries and job security are key drivers of stress which in turn leads to significant sleep loss."

And then promptly went for a lie down.

Bean intends to make a meal of his new job
IF Bank of England deputy governor Charlie Bean has a tailor he should keep a few free slots in his diary because a refitting may soon be required.

Bean has a strong academic background, serving as the Bank's chief economist and before that professor of economics at the London School of Economics. But he told MPs that he was intending to broaden his experience by going out and meeting lots of market participants.

One MP asked, in a slightly puritanical tone, if that meant lots of lunches. Undeterred Bean, sounding like a man who has spent a decade on the cabbage soup diet, said: "That will mean breakfast meetings, lunches and dinners with people from the markets and the banking sector generally."

Quite right. With economic conditions like these, Bank staff need all the comfort food they can get.

A brew to keep the wolves from the door
Business Diary is still the occasional lucky recipient of updates for Baltika Breweries, the Russian beer company that was until recently half-owned by Scottish & Newcastle.

The company's latest product is Sibirsky Bochonok, a beer "brewed for real Siberians who value strong male friendship and love their native region". Not a product for the Sleeping Land's nascent metrosexual market then.

Disappointingly Baltika, now controlled by Carlsberg, doesn't attempt to blunt those tough Siberian nights with an even stronger brew than its bracing 8% volume Baltika 9.

But the new wimpy 5% brew is overtly positioned in the "economy segment, whose core audience consists of males aged 30-45" and costs the equivalent of 76p for a 1.5-litre bottle so I guess you can just stock up. It does make Buckfast look like a luxurious extravagance.

How the whisky baron finally clocked off FURTHER to a piece in Business Diary touching on the demise of William Teacher, founder of the eponymous whisky brand now owned by Beam Global, the great-great-grandson of the man nicknamed "Old Thorough" has been in touch about the kind deed that led to his ancestor's ultimate passing on December 27, 1876.

Ronnie Anderson tells us that William Senior burst a blood vessel and suffered a stroke after moving a heavy clock from the wall of his house.

He quotes from an obituary in the Scottish Standard of January 6, 1877: "This his man-servant wanted to do - and being an able-bodied man was fully capable of doing - but Mr Teacher with the energy and activity that always characterised him resolved to do it himself, telling his servant that it was too heavy for him."

William Teacher, who was 65, died several days after this thoughtful act.

The Scottish Standard alludes to William Teacher having been in his prime, declaring: "His death was, we may say, unexpected by his friends, as he had all the appearance of a man who might live to a great age, being tall and active and of spare make."

Contribution by Ian McConnell