Taking the biscuit
AMONG the handful of attendees at the Charlotte Square annual meeting of Cupid, the online dating specialist, the least expected sighting was Sir Angus Grossart.
Quizzed over the tea and cookies on whether he was an investor, the doyen of financiers said he was "thinking about it".
On the reasons for his presence at the gathering, Sir Angus gave two answers: curiosity, and "the biscuits".
Praise for Sir Tom
PRESIDENT Bill Clinton gave his 1700-strong audience at last week's Scottish Business Awards a 90-minute world tour.
He began by insisting that Sir Tom Hunter was "way too modest" in the credit he took for the Clinton global initiative's work with rural farmers in Rwanda and Malawi, whose income had been doubled overnight simply "by taking their food to market and not charging them 50% to do so".
Czech this out
IF you want a job done well, call in the Czechs. Just ask Peter Page, chief executive of Devro, producer of collagen cases for the food manufacturing industry around the world.
Devro reported this week that the new factory it is building in the Czech Republic is coming in ahead of time and budget, leading Mr Page to comment: "That is so typically Czech!"
"If they give you a budget and an action plan you can always say they will be a fraction under budget and be a fraction ahead of time."
The Budvar is on Mr Page.
Bank break
BACK at the Scottish Business Awards, Sir Brian Souter, on stage to announce the shortlist for the corporate social responsibility gong, couldn't resist going off script.
As a cheer went up for Lloyds Banking Group, he smiled: "I have to cheer them I owe them a lot of money", and then as a mere murmur greeted the name of FirstGroup, Sir Brian called out: "Aw come on, give' em a break."
Budgets blown
AS The Bottom Line was packing our bucket and spade we were distracted by research suggesting three-quarters of Brits have never managed to get a budget airline flight for the advertised price.
Indeed, only one-third were able to bag a flight for £100 or less in the past five years.
As ever austerity affects us all in different ways with 12% of respondents saying the least they had paid for a return flight was £300.
We are not sure if that includes the Champagne, canapes and chauffeur to and from the airport.
Pizza serve
TENNIS ace Andy Murray has no shortage of big name brands lining up to endorse him. But he has perhaps burnt his bridges with one well known high street restaurant name.
In a BBC documentary on the US Open and Olympic champion screened on the eve of Wimbledon, the boy from Dunblane talked of the importance of a healthy diet in staying at the top.
But it was not ever thus. Murray revealed that as a younger lad on the tour he thought nothing of eating food from Pizza Express after a hard day on the court.
Perhaps we can now expect a renewed healthy eating drive from the pizza chain.
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