Cash is still king
Cash is still king
HUGH Andrew, managing director of Edinburgh's Birlinn publishing house, has no doubt about what is the main ingredient of a successful business.
At last week's launch of Ian Fraser's book Shredded, the inside story of RBS' downfall, the publisher invited his guests from the worlds of finance and media to buy special offer copies of the book which the author stood ready to sign. "We don't take CDOs [collaterised debt obligations]," he announced. "Only cash. That's why Birlinn is in business and RBS collapsed."
Travails of travel
NEXT time The Bottom Line moan's about its commute remind us to keep quiet. A note in Edrington Group's annual report shows Paul Ross, president for the Americas, racked up 75,000 miles of travel between January and April this year as the spirits company opened a number of new offices.
He said: "It's all about the shoe leather. The US isn't really one market."
Hopefully those frequent flyer points keep him in nice hotels.
Merry jig in Poland
SCOTLAND is good at tourism but is a rival stealing a march - or rather a dance?
Step forward our personal finance contributor Helen Pridham, based in the south but an avid Scottish country dancing fan, who is just back from a week in Poland.
Not content with visiting the salt mine at Krakow, in production until 20 years ago, Helen signed up with "a group of Brits, French, Japanese, Danish - and a few Poles" to dance the Gay Gordons and Dashing White Sergeant several hundred metres underground in the mine.
It was laid on by the Scottish Country Dancing Club of Krakow - of course!
Rock dinosaurs
ONE in five over-50s will be rocking at a music festival this summer, if you believe Saga, which surveyed more than 10,000 customers.
"With hundreds of exciting festivals taking place, it's little wonder that so many members of the Saga generation are rolling back the years to party," says the insurer, adding: "It shouldn't be a surprise that so many festival-goers are over 50, as a large number of bands playing are in the same age group."
Given that Mick Jagger is now a great-grandfather, it would be good to know just how many outdoor party animals are over 70.
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 hereComments are closed on this article