DIARY readers with exceptional memories may recall that in the year of
1982 we devoted a few column inches to the activities of entrepreneur
Norval ''Norrie'' Sinclair whose MCS/Robertson and Scott advertising
agency empire went bust owing something above #2m.
As well as the usual mutterings of complaint from creditors, the
accountant put in as receiver also made some comment: to the extent of
asking where some of the money went because he couldn't find it in the
books.
A lot of people from a wee newsagent in Drymen to big printing
companies all lost money and everyone agreed it was a thoroughly bad
business. The company crash, unusually, attracted the attention of the
Strathclyde police fraud squad. After many months of investigation Mr
Sinclair and his company secretary Mr Daniel Fulton were charged and
were to face trial on 14 charges of embezzlement and sundry other
infractions of company law.
The charges involved the shuffling to and fro (but significantly fro)
of sums of money from #90,000 down to #5595.
Meanwhile Mr Sinclair had moved on to to the retail trade, selling
clothes to the burghers of Milngavie.
So why is the Diary telling you all this history? Well, we have just
heard that the whole matter has finally reached a conclusion.
All those newsagents, printers, and other suppliers who lost out in
the great MCS will no doubt be relieved to know that Mr Sinclair has
been dealt with by the full majesty of the law.
At Glasgow Sheriff Court on February 20 this year, after postponement
and discussion, Norval William Sinclair copped a plea as the lawyers
say. He admitted two charges of embezzling #60,000 and #13,900 between
May and August 1982. The other charges were dropped.
Daniel Fulton pled not guilty to all charges and this was accepted by
the Crown.
Norval William Sinclair was fined #1000. A motion by the Crown that he
be deemed unfit to be a company director was denied by the bench.
When last we read of Mr Sinclair, in 1985, he had just launched a
consultancy to tell people how to get on in business.
Dressing down
THE Producers (Part 3): The Herald Diary has become an angel. That is
to say we have come to the aid of the play Burning Prayers at the
Scottish Student Drama Festival.
The object of our angelship, you might remember, was to allow the
talented young author and director Edward Blum and his colleagues in the
Fair Exchange Theatre Company to put on the play without selling a
kidney or two. Now that we have been busy raising the cash (one
co-producer at #100 still required by the way), we have also been
discovering the bitter gall downside of being a producer.
How about making Burning Prayers a musical, we asked young Blum? A
chorus line, perhaps, with can-can girls or, if you would like to be
more modern, leather mini-skirts.
No, said young Blum with a firm aspect, Burning Prayers is a starkly
realistic examination of totalitarianism as it divides communities and
individual families. It is the story of a resistance movement which
comes to grief.
''Resistance?'' we said to young Blum. ''Like 'Allo, 'Allo on the
telly? Couldn't we have the girls dressed as French maids or tarts or .
. .''
''No,'' said young Blum. ''Come along to the dress rehearsal and then
we will talk about chorus lines and production numbers.'' So we did and
there was no need for discussion. Burning Prayers is indeed a powerful
and serious play. Gripping, engrossing, thought-provoking. It even has
an actress in it called Eli Ossian which can't be a bad start for a
Scottish play. (There are still seats available for the performances at
the Tron Theatre on Friday and Saturday evenings. Extra attraction --
see The Producer sitting nervously in the audience.)
Anyway The Producer has left artistic considerations to young Blum and
the excellent cast and has got on with organising the after-the-show
party. Regardless of how the play goes, some sponsorship in the form of
bottles of wine for a party afterwards from Euroscot Wine Agencies of
Coldstream will ensure that there will be little pain once the curtain
goes down.
Expletive deleted
WE asked for nominations for the Oscar Wilde Award for wit and
subtlety in public debate.
The combatants in the following case are Lord Burton of Dochfour, a
scion of the brewery magnate family who is active in Highland politics
and life, and one Brian Wilson, Labour MP and columnist in the West
Highland Free Press.
Baron Dochfour had been in the headlines again because of allegedly
shouting at an employee of the Ness District Fishery Board of which he
is chairman.
Brian the Red took up the cudgels on behalf of the undertrodden mass
but allowed himself to become somewhat intemperate by referring to Baron
Dochfour in his West Highland organ as a ''shit.''
Sure enough, a douce Free Press reader wrote in to complain about this
foul language and Mr Wilson has been forced to apologise (to the reader,
if not Baron Dochfour).
Mr Wilson says that he will not use the offending word in future. But
he has coined a new word which is equal in meaning but not as offensive.
In future he will refer to his lordship as a ''dochfour.''
Close encounter
THE Post Office strikes again. In a thrusting, marketeering kind of
way Royal Mail Parcels International have been writing to potential
customers to sell their service.
Mr Kenneth Mackenzie of Stornoway, Isle of Lewis, might just have been
impressed if they hadn't written to him at Stornoway, Renfrewshire, or
Stornoway, Strathclyde.
Now we know
THESE damned Herald Diary readers don't let us off with nothing when
it comes to accuracy and erudition. We wrote a straightforward little
piece about how the English had become confused about the good old Scots
word bampot.
Now here comes Mr J.C. Cairns of Cumnock to explain that a bampot is
in fact a section of thick bamboo filled with explosives and thrown at
the enemy. Thank you, Mr Cairns. It does sound like the kind of bampot
the English might understand.
THE Family in the Far East are obviously not concerned about going
public, if this sign, spotted in Hyatt Hilton in Macao, is anything to
go by.
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