Linda Kennedy

It’s 8am on a weekday at Edinburgh airport. I’m off to do some work in Budapest. I’ve already checked in and triumphed in the battle to print a sticky bag tag and adhere it to my luggage. I’ve got work material on my new iPad and a cortado coffee – a diminutive 150ml less-foamy cappuccino. I’m feeling quite the cosmopolitan dame.

IT’S only going to take two minutes. It’s steps. It’s cardio. It’s easy. Come on. So begins the effort to persuade myself to take the rubbish down three flights of stairs to the outside bins.

I’M nervous of the new rules for fire alarms. What if I get the wrong type and it starts sprinkling? It will be drizzling indoors. Fire alarms are the topic of the moment. Or I assume so. “Is yours battery-powered?” said the next table in the café, to chortles.

RISING sea levels you’ve heard of. Rising seagull levels? I hear those every day. Maybe you do too.

WHETHER it’s a luxury cottage at Loch Lomond or wild camping, there are people packing for Scotland right now. It’s sparking a realisation: there’s a need for a Scottish suitcase. I don’t mean luggage featuring thistles or a Tunnock’s Teacake – though these designs exist – but a valise with more volume.

A generation ago in Swaziland gout was seldom seen except in British colonials with a taste for red wine and strong spirits. Now, several times a week, middle-aged men hobble in, grunting with pain. New cases are at a loss to explain the sudden onset but the evidence is there for everyone to see – an ankle, knee or big toe being red, swollen, hot and tender.

DON’T ever tell anyone in Singapore somewhere is “haaching”. I beg you. It’s to preserve Scotland’s reputation. The journey to this knowledge started one afternoon in Hong Kong, as I sought a coffee shop for an hour’s work before a meeting. The target, a café called Elephant Grounds, was incredibly busy. At this point, a friend in Singapore Whatsapped to inquire after my well-being and what-doing, so I conveyed my aspirations to caffeinate and crossly added but “Elephant Grounds is hoaching”.

A NEW import from the West is arriving in Asia. Bearded hipsters. These posers create a poser. Beards here? Why? Surely facial hair in humidity means stubble trouble.

WORLD Buckfast Day. It’s the second Saturday in May, so if you took part last year your hangover is abating about now and if you didn’t, mark May 13 on your smartphone calendar. The event’s a keeper. Two years ago, this special occasion was National Buckfast Day. But, like the drink itself, the instinct was to want more. Here in Hong Kong, I asked questions pertaining to Buckfast awareness. Local heads shook. Expat Scottish heads shook. The Scots had heard of Buckie but not its global gala. So the brand has some work to do. Which got me thinking about a social media campaign .