• The secrets of how staff at Ryanair manage to refuel and ready planes for take-off within 25 minutes of landing are to be revealed in Channel 4's Dispatches programme on Monday. Highlights of the show, which features extensive undercover footage, is a claim that, on finding vomit in the aisle, the secret Dispatches reporter's superior suggests spraying some aftershave on the patch to mask the smell. True to form, Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's boss, is not taking the matter lying down. He believes he has been denied a right of reply, saying the producers have declined to give him a "live or unedited" interview slot in which to set out his views.
• The latest efficiency wheeze at Marks & Sparks, we learn, is to flog off under-used floorspace above many of its freehold stores for conversion into luxury flat developments. There was a time, however, when such areas were crammed with stock or teeming with staff dentists, doctors and chiropodists. But no more. The stock supply chain is a leaner, meaner operation under the chief executive, Stuart Rose. And staff perks are leaner and meaner too.
• The former Mirror hack James Hipwell wasn't the only white-collar scamp jailed yesterday (despite the call this week by Charles Clarke, the home secretary, for a cut in the number of non-violent offenders going to jail). After what was possibly the most inventive dental crime since Mad Frankie Fraser hung up his silver pliers, London dentist Shabbir Merchant was sentenced to 18 months for making a string of false claims for treatment of almost 200 NHS patients in the Swiss Cottage area with costly fillings, crowns and root canal work. He made £300,000 from invented treatments over five years. When suspicions were first raised and files requested by fraud investigators, Merchant claimed three years of records had been stolen. Unremorseful, even after being caught, he complained he had only turned to crime because he was a perfectionist, disadvantaged by an NHS payment scheme rewarding quantity of work over quality.
• Compass, the troubled catering group, was given a surprisingly easy ride, given its relentless stream of bad news in recent times, at its shareholder meeting yesterday. Perhaps the toughest question put to Sir Francis Mackay, the chairman, was about his own pension fund, believed by one shareholder to be in deficit. The mischievous questioner asked if Sir Francis might waive part of his entitlement; a suggestion Sir Francis laughed off. The problem, he explained, is one of life expectancy - "which at this moment is looking a little shorter".
• This article was amended on 7 August 2015 to clarify the description of the false claims made by Shabbir Merchant.
