The Old Lady’s staff – gamers and gold bugs

BANK of England employees spend their worktime playing online games, planning trips to expensive shops and working out how to buy gold, according to data obtained by The Capitalist.

We’ve got hold of a list of the top 500 websites visited by central bank employees over the last year – and it reveals their most popular online destinations include a now-defunct website called Play Best Games that used to offer access to applications such as “Cheerleader Dress Up” and “Lady Gaga MakeUp”.

The figures also show many visits from the Bank of England to a website called SPDR Gold Shares – a company that promises an “innovative, relatively cost efficient and secure way” to access the gold market. At the time of going to press The Capitalist could not confirm whether this pointed towards future monetary policy.

Another heavily visited website is a fanpage for Indian TV star Ram Koopar, who is described as one of the subcontinent’s “most scrumptious leading men” with “dark, brooding looks”.

There was heavy web traffic for pricey City restaurant Sushi Samba, upmarket retailers Laura Ashley and Waitrose, as well as the Arsenal fansite onlinegooner.com.

Other popular destinations include money savings website discountvouchers.co.uk – a suitable choice for financial regulators in these straitened times – as well as sites relating to West Ham United, iron man competitions, and an Essex wedding photographer named David Islip.

Keep your eye on the ball, regulators.