What is it with law firms and codenames? Yet more intelligence reaches The Diary of firms coming up with cunning codes, this time in the case of the failed merger bid between Simmons & Simmons and Watson Farley & Williams.

Apparently, the top-secret talks were dubbed ‘Project Holmes’, a cunning reference explained by one Simmons insider: “It is because of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson, so the Watson was the reference to Watson Farley & Williams!”