A PORRIDGE lover in Edinburgh has started a new business with big ambitions to help feed the world – as well as local people and tourists. The Porridge Box, based in the Old Police Box outside Edinburgh’s Tron Kirk in Hunter Square, will be donating a portion of its profits to Mary’s Meals, the charity that feeds more than one million children every day in the developing world. Jas Scott-Moncrieff, 51, originally from Peebles, took several years to develop his mix of pinhead oats, oat bran, oat flour and oat flakes for his two main product lines – which can then be flavoured in the traditional way, or with ingredients including hemp oil, Brazil nut or sunflower seed butter. Mr Scott-Moncrieff described his recipe as “a real power food” with traditional roots, but optional flavours for the 21st century. “I also wanted the Porridge Box to have social responsibility and clear ethical and environmental values,” he added. “More than anything, by creating porridge as Scottish street food, I hope people enjoy it!”
ON the subject of police boxes, a desk tidy modelled after Dr Who’s TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) has inspired out-of-this-world spin from the bloggers at Surrey-based novelty gift maker The Monster Factory. “Do you dread those long, dreary days in the office fielding emails, fiddling with spreadsheets and brainstorming novel ways to unjam the printer? Whether it’s wading through revision or spending endless hours watching the spinning wheel of death on your laptop screen, you are not alone – even Time Lords have to do their admin! At last something has come along to relieve the tedium of everyday life on Earth. Before you run out of the door screeching ‘exterminate!’ at Keith in Accounts, let the TARDIS desk tidy whisk you away on a journey through space and time. You may not have a plucky companion, but you can have the ultimate accessory…”
PR agency The BIG Partnership is raising money for St Andrew’s Hospice in Airdrie by getting rid of office jargon. In its “jar-gone” campaign, anyone using a banned word or phrase gets fined 20p and the money goes into the fundraising jar. The no-no list includes ‘touch base’, ‘strategic’, ‘deliverables’, ‘ducks in a row’, ‘turnkey solution’, ‘revert’, ‘learnings’ and ‘helicopter thinking.’
All the money goes towards the St Andrew’s Hospice £9 million Capital Appeal, which is raising money to completely refurbish, upgrade and extend the hospice building. “20p doesn’t sound like a lot, but you’d be surprised by how many times these words get used on a daily basis,” a BIG spokesman said. “We’re having to add new words and phrases all the time as people at BIG, and beyond, come up with new ways of needlessly complicating the English language. On the plus side, it’s raising some cash for a great cause.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here