Hot stuff

AS temperatures reached a record high last week, it was a pleasure to drink a cold beer in the company of Federation of Master Builders’ director Gordon Nelson.

The FMB’s Scottish chief was in jovial form during a get together for journalists at The Shilling Brewing Company in Glasgow.

But not every FMB member who had hoped to attend actually made it.

Mr Nelson revealed one colleague had been held up attending to melting railway tracks.

It is certainly not among the usual excuses you hear when someone is unable to attend an event.

A Team

FOR The Bottom Line he will always be Bob Servant, the Dundee burger van entrepreneur. For others it will be the myriad parts he has had in a stream of Hollywood blockbusters.

But for Scottish distiller Arbikie, Brian Cox has a much more important role.

The actor is a patron of the company’s “A Club”, a live music venue and cocktail bar it will again run at The Merchants’ Hall during the Edinburgh Fringe.

The club will feature an “array of jazz, folk, pop and rock”, not to mention “tabled-served cocktails and food”.

Burgers fried in a Broughty Ferry van were conspicuously absent from the press release, sadly.

Good to talk

THERE is no shortage of motivational speakers on the business circuit. But how many genuinely inspire people to make positive changes in their own lives?

It is a question Debbie Byers and Carol Graham (pictured) have clearly been pondering. The sisters have launched a new speaker agency focused purely on promoting people who want to make a positive social, culture or behavioural change in society.

Speaker Buzz will launch with a roster including Mollie Hughes, who at 26 became the youngest woman in the world to summit Mount Everest from both the north and south sides.

Ms Byers, who runs PR agency Beeline, said: “Having been fortunate enough to have listened to hundreds of motivational speakers during my PR career, I was conscious of the difference between the truly inspirational speakers, who motivated me to take action and change things around me, and those who are often just going through the motions to pick up their fee.

“Carol and I wanted to create a place that is exclusively for those in the former category, which is why we have launched Speaker Buzz to showcase the passion and talent of some truly extraordinary people.”

High times

If you have a fear of heights, you might think twice about applying for a job at AMG Group.

The Inverclyde-based firm which owns the Vango outdoors brand has moved its distribution operation to a 113,000 square foot site near Glasgow Airport. With the space spanning 4.5 million cubic feet, boss Stephen Newlands quipped “there is snow on some of the racking, it is so high.”

Perhaps the climbing gear Vango sells will come in handy...