Off the cuff

ANNUAL meetings give shareholders the chance to let off steam, but they are supposed to ask questions on what they have heard from the chairman and chief executive.

This year's Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS affair) was not so much Q and A as a series of lengthy diatribes from a succession of alienated customers, without even a sighting shot on executive pay for relief.

Pity poor Robert Beattie, whose question about the bank's latest IT crash ensured the subject was not buried without trace.

"I feel quite inadequate," he told chairman Sir Philip Hampton. "I don't have a prepared statement."

Shaking up business

It isn't all whisky tastings and fancy bars for drinks executives on international trips.

Norman Murray, chairman at Edrington, recalls in the company's annual report a trip to Taipei to meet the company's managing director for Taiwan, Jennifer Wu.

A day of meetings was followed by dinner and Mr Murray said: "The impressive surroundings of the 86th floor of Taipei 101 were a fitting setting until the interruption of an earth tremor registering 6.3 on the Richter scale."

Neil shows good form

PAISLEY'S own Andrew Neil did not disappoint when he returned to Glasgow as Brewin Dolphin's star speaker.

After UKIP leader Nigel Farage had told him on air that the government must "stop throwing bags of money over Hadrian's Wall", the TV host observed that "they would still be in England", at which Farage admitted geography was not his strong suit.

"Nor is economics," Neil murmured. He also predicted that the government would now pile money into the former Liberal strongholds of south-west England. "There will be roads to nowhere and bridges over rivers that don't exist," Neil said.

Trending on Twitter

JOHN Cridland, the CBI's director-general, is as aware as the next business leader of the power of social media.

But he assured The Bottom Line does not go out of his way to tweet his every move. So when he returned home from making a speech in a sleepy corner of the south of England he was stunned to be told by his 17-year-old son: "Dad, you've been trending on Twitter all morning!"

The explanation? The bosses' leader had been inaugurating his campaign for the scrapping of GCSE exams.

Beer Price Index

FOR many holidaymakers, there is surely no better way to gauge the cost of a holiday.

A travel comparison site has developed a new guide to costs in popular destinations based on the price of beer.

According to the 2015 Beer Price Index, compiled by GoEuro.co.uk, Geneva is the most costly location, with Hong Kong and Tel Aviv following closely behind.

Krakow and Kiev, by contrast, are significantly cheaper. While tourists can get about nine bottles of beer for £10 in Krakow, only two can be bought in for that sum in Geneva.