The Museum of London was this month celebrating the success of a new ruse to wrangle cash from culture-phobic companies – a scheme not every City law firm proved impervious to.

The museum has been selling 'years' to London businesses at £5,000 a pop to help fund its redevelopment, with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Slaughter and May and Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) all sidling up for a slice of the action.

Slaughters dragged itself into what it probably thinks is the modern era by purchasing 1889, commemorating when Sir Nigel of Boardman was just a second-year trainee. Freshfields went for the rare vintage year of 1743, the year it first started looking for a US merger partner, while the ultra-modern BLP opted for 2001 because Neville Eisenberg is a big sci-fi nut.