What makes them do it? Abject need? Or, as some claim, a simple, honest desire to make money quickly and without fuss, no matter how disagreeable the clients and practices involved? Whatever the reasons that intelligent, often highly qualified women decide, apparently of their own free will, to work in the City, there can be no doubt that it is an unforgivably brutish and sexist environment. Not quite so brutal, one imagines, as the average British police force or burger house, men's lifestyle magazine or innovative new "mini-brothel" - nor yet as sexist as the Church of England Synod - but still: ghastly.For a highly developed appreciation of this ghastliness we are indebted to a succession of City employees, without whose descriptions - conventionally issued in the course of a dispute about discrimination, or unfair dismissal - many of us might still think of the place as a model equal opportunities employer, as committed to living its values in the workplace as it is to the causes of anti-globalisation and making poverty history.The pioneer in this respect was, of course, Nicola Horlick, whom we first encountered in 1997, adroitly manipulating the press in order to transform some arcane but faintly grubby dispute about poaching staff into a more elevated moral issue. One which was never to be fully explained, but clearly related to the talented, irreproachable nature of a super-person such as Ms Horlick, whose five equally blameless children were regularly offered for photography. Entranced reporters followed Horlick to Frankfurt and back, loyally noting every cry of "I will be heard" and "Justice will be done", and recording her solemn vow to "undo the great wrong that has been done against me".Was it ever undone? One forgets. At any rate, although plucky Horlick went on to recover from her Frankfurt ordeal (with the near-miraculous rapidity to be expected from the Jeanne D'Arc of fund management), some of her successors have required prodigious sums of money to alleviate the great wrongs done to them, which have ranged from bullying (by both sexes) and spitting, to disrespectful name-calling (eg, "hot totty") and innumerable lapdancing-related incidents.Arguably, since these affronts continue unabated, the compensation awards have been nowhere near high enough. This week - in an entertaining re-enactment of Horlick's martyrdom-spectacle, Claire Bright demanded &pound;11m to help her get over being - allegedly - mistreated by a man at HBOS, where she earned &pound;600,000 a year as a head of asset management. Perhaps (it's unclear how this figure was arrived at), she has been rendered entirely unfit to manage assets by her year working for a man she described as "a mini Hitler" - presumably because, given the relatively small size of a City office compared with Nazi Germany, a mini-Holocaust was the most he was able to achieve at HBOS.For many of us, having encountered nothing more in our careers than bog-standard levels of bullying, sexism and offensiveness, the suffering endured by Ms Bright in her year at HBOS may be impossible to imagine. We can only feel relief that it does not approach the slights and setbacks sustained by the six women bankers at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (a top company, apparently, recently acclaimed as "Best Debt House - Ukraine 2004"), who are currently demanding collective compensation of &pound;800m. Offences against them ranged from one being hailed as "the Pamela Anderson of trading" to others having to work in a place where a "married chief executive openly dated his personal assistant".Evidently, the issue here is not the women's suffering, which remains incalculable, but the size of their award. Is &pound;130m per Dresdner banker really enough? If the past few years of compensation claims have taught us anything, it is that, when they are not bullies, people who go into the City are likely to suffer from almost preternatural sensitivity. While a person who lost both legs in the July 7 bombings may hobble away quite gratefully with around &pound;50,000 per leg from the Criminal Injuries Board, the agony of being Bright - with accumulated snubs to the value of &pound;11m - cannot be so easily assuaged. So much so, that one worries. Would it, perhaps, be responsible if newspapers ceased to advertise this kind of gargantuan compensation claim, since it can have minimal bearing on settlements in the real world, and must surely, for the still-traumatised City victims and their lawyers, be the cause of further, unendurable pain?<b>Can no one protect our schools from the</b> forces of darkness? An advertisement in last week's Guardian reassures us that within just a few years, the education secretary's statutory powers should be substantially bolstered in this respect by the power of the Lord Jesus. Seeking an "accomplished fundraiser", we find this newspaper's former Diary Vicar, the Rev Steve Chalke.The charity, Oasis UK - says the advertisement - "requires an experienced and enthusiastic individual to work alongside the Founder, Steve Chalke, to raise the required funds to realise Oasis' vision". And what is that vision? It is "to create outstanding schools and vibrant community hubs. Our motivation is rooted in the core beliefs and values of the Christian faith ... " The successful applicant, it specifies, "Owns Oasis' ethos", as well as having a "proven track record of fundraising primarily from HVDs, corporate and business sectors". HVD? A piece of religious jargon, meaning high value dealer. There is no need, you gather, for the fundraiser to know anything about schools; this, presumably being the job of the Rev Steve Chalke. Not that he, from what one can tell, has any experience of running schools either.No matter: our children's education depends, the government has decided, on the involvement of amateurs - whether they be homophobic religious fanatics, self-promoting tradesmen, would-be barons, parents or classroom assistants - guaranteed to have no experience in schools. Their aim, like that of the prime minister's old speechwriter, Peter Hyman, when he arrived at Islington Green, may be no more complicated than to "do something different". Or in the Rev Steve Chalke's case, to live the values of the Christian faith. Or in Reg Vardy's, to promulgate the efficacy of a flood, as a sovereign remedy for sin.Will our children's minds be safe in their hands? Who, after the past few days, can doubt it?<b>This week</b> Catherine read extracts from Naomi Wolf's latest, The Treehouse; about what her dad thinks: "Reminded me to get hold of Little House in the Big Woods - more lessons in life and cabin construction from Pa, better told." Catherine watched: "Shamefully, with enormous pleasure, Galloway throwing it all away on Celebrity Big Brother.