The Evening Standard's Gideon Spanier does a good job documenting the new wave of start-ups in London's City PR scene. Tightly-held ownership stakes, combined with a nascent economic recovery, are spurring entreprenurial financial PR types to start their own shops. That theme is given more emphasis by the news that Brunswick is broadening its equity ownership, in a bid to "empower the next generation". But does this mean co-founder Alan Parker is thinking about a succession strategy? Ogilvy PR's decision to jump before being pushed from its $9 million California High-Speed Rail Authority account has generated plenty of headlines. Relationships often go sour, particularly when a project is as sensitive as this. Presumably the next firm to take up this chalice will be wary of the risks involved. We are a bit late on this one, but news of Osama Bin Laden's rebranding plans for Al-Qaeda offer a fascinating insight into the media sensibility that helped take the terrorism organization into a league of its own. Still, this has to count as a classic case of spin trumping any semblance of substance.