What are trainees for? Okay, so The Diary can think of a thousand unprintable answers City partners might offer to that question, but at Addleshaw Goddard the answer is… bricklaying.

The gritty Madchester outfit is sending this September’s intake of trainees on a house-building project in Romania, perhaps to undermine the claims of national rival Pinsent Masons that it has the better construction practice.