IT'S a tribute from one Houston to another.

Glasgow’s Houston Brewery has launched (geddit?) a new brew to commemorate the last flight of NASA’s space shuttle.

Atlantis 135 is named after the space shuttle Atlantis, which embarked on its final mission – ST-135 – yesterday afternoon .

The beer is now available at Houston Brewery’s home at the Fox and Hounds pub in Houston, near Glasgow Airport, and will be on sale across the UK from August 1.

Houston said it plans to continue its tribute to the Texan home of mission control by releasing a space-related beer for each month of 2011. The next beer for take-off will be Endeavour.

THINGS are looking ruff in the bond markets. Standard Life Investments’ global thematic strategist Frances Hudson explained that bond managers at the house are not very keen on Government debt. But they are still selectively buying the securities in some markets. “It is an ugly dog competition,” she explained.

LLOYDS chief executive Eric Daniels has been retained by the bank as a consultant after being replaced by Antonio Horta-Osorio.

However, it looks like he will have an easy time until he formally retires in September.

Asked if he had been part of the bank’s major strategic review, chairman Sir Win Bischoff said: “He has had no involvement in the strategic review.”

Indeed, it seems he has been involved in nothing at all.

“We have had no occasion yet to call on him,” Sir Win said.

THERE were worried looks at the British Bankers’ Association’s annual conference in London when Bank of England deputy governor Paul Tucker failed to show up for his speech.

It wasn’t so much that delegates were desperate to hear Mr Tucker’s latest views on macroprudential supervision.

Rather, there were concerns that his absence was a signal that a key austerity vote at the Greek Parliament, which had been due only minutes earlier, had been lost.

Mr Tucker eventually appeared some 15 minutes late, prompting widespread relief that the great eurozone sovereign crisis is postponed for another day.