So, the Digby Jones era at the CBI is nearly over.

And it looks as if it is suffering Digby fatigue.

The choice of Richard Lambert, the former Financial Times editor, as his successor appears to represent - in film parlance - The Return of the Eggheads.

More an Adair Turner than a Digby.

A safe choice. An ivory tower intellectual. Happier deep in economic theory than calling a spade a spade.

He says not, of course. "I'm not a policy wonk and I don't intend to turn the CBI into a think tank," he claimed in a recent interview. "I intend to be a coalface person."

Nevertheless, life is surely going to be a lot quieter, a lot less frenetic and perhaps less exciting at CBI headquarters.

Mr Lambert is also denying that he will be Gordon Brown's poodle.

He is alleged to be more of a Brown man than a Blairite, and to that extent you can see why the CBI mandarins perhaps wanted him even though they normally go for much younger men - Lambert is 62.

Incidentally they are always men - another lost opportunity to have a woman as club secretary.

The fact that Mr Lambert headed two task forces for Brown, and was appointed to the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee by him, did not mean they were close, he insisted.

Isn't it bizarre how after a certain agenda or particular style of individual an organisation opts for something completely different.

I suspect Digby's energy and drive has exhausted the CBI - they want a breather.

I suspect Digby's outspokenness and frank speaking has left the CBI's leaders a little shell-shocked.

I suspect those who fear that the CBI has strayed into areas it possibly shouldn't have and worried it had been getting a bit of a rent-a-gob reputation, will feel a lot happier.

Perhaps there will even be a certain relief that the regional rabblerouser has gone.

But Sir Digby was good for the CBI.

Shook it up, related to the troops on the ground, increased the membership, was all inclusive rather than just a London clone, took it to a new and higher level.

It would be a great pity if it started treading water or indeed began slipping back into cosy slumber.

But one can't help speculate that Lambert is more a throwback to the past than an attempt to address the future.

It seems Rachel Lomax, deputy governor of the Bank of England, would like life a little cosier too.

Poor didums was whining the other day about how tough it was on the Monetary Policy Committee.

In a speech in Oslo - she probably thought she was far enough away not to be noticed - she described the frequency of MPC meetings as a burden.

"It is a very heavy duty commitment. The question of whether it needs to be this heavy-duty preoccupies me.

"My worry is that this crowds out thought. Fewer meetings, fewer monthly forecasts might give people a chance to stand back."

Not half as tough, love, as the manufacturers at Mr Lambert's "coalface" who have to wrestle with MPC decisions.