God bless those kind-hearted bods at White & Case for a noble attempt to take the White out of the post-Christmas chill.

For, when temperatures in the firm's City office plummeted one icy morning, it kindly alleviated bouts of frostbite among its benumbed workers by handing around some home-made vegetable soup to warm the cockles of its numb workforce.

Rumours that the operation was so well received that it has persuaded finance head Maurice Allen to quit law and set up a soup kitchen, have yet to be confirmed.