Ocado finance director Jason Gissing is one of the more quotable FDs around. So it was no surprise that his comments yesterday on the relationship between the delivery service that he steers and Waitrose, its food supplier, were widely picked up.

They are a pain in the arise to deal with at the corporate level," he said in typically forthright style. 'They don't speak with one voice.'

But for me it was his other comments, effectively ruling out the prospect of a long-expected flotation in the looming recession that were more interesting, more revealing and utterly salutory.

'Personally I can't think of anything worse to do,' he said. 'I am finance director and marketing director and it is a thankless task to be finance director of a public company in the UK. One day it will float, but I won't be the finance director.'

I imagine he's not the only private company FD to feel that way