A 'riveting' new brew

Until now the theme of the campaign has been kept under wraps but

Business Diary can now reveal that it will feature workmen on the Forth

Road Bridge where rivets have fallen out and are replaced with Iron Brew

''Rivets'.

Shades of Steel Girders and Scotland's other national drink Irn Bru.

Business Diary is not going to embarrass any of our readers by asking

those who had not spotted the subtle difference between Iron Brew and

Irn Bru to own up.

'Rivets' has been dreamed up by Aziz Okhai who runs the MeriMate

company in Dundee andwho admits that the name of his new drink, and the

advertising campaign is a bit tongue in cheek.

Mr. Okhai admitted: ''I thought of the idea, but we did not try to

copy the taste. Irn Bru is an excellent drink but some of the cheaper

imitations are horrible. We think we have a good drink which offers good

value. It will be reasonably priced but not stuck at the bottom.''

Despite the take off there is a serious side to the new launch. Mr.

Okhai believes there is a market for an ''iron brew flavoured soft

drink'' which is not so expensive as Barrs but is not positioned at the

cheap end of the market.

That is why he is prepared to spend #250,000 on an advertising

campaign in Scotland to make the public aware of his new drink. He told

Business Diary: ''It takes a lot of courage to spend this kind of money

when you have no brand leader.''

No doubt when the competition appears in July Barrs will show just

what kind of metal they are made of.

Don't bank on our support

BANKER David Smith has struck platinum as far as the Royal Bank of

Scotland's Winning Ideas scheme is concerned but perhaps David should

expect boos instead of cheers as far as some bank customers are

concerned.

David struck platinum with his suggestion to the bank as to how to

close a loophole in the standing order charging structure for Royal Bank

loans.

The enterprising banker(boo) first won gold when, according to the

bank's Newsline mangazine, '' a great deal of income was being lost

because procedures were not consistent throughout the network.''

Personal Banking Services ''closed the loophole,'' which means that

customers now pay more and David picked up a #1,000 prize and a trip to

the San Marino Grand Prix.

It gets better,or is it worse? For the magazine then reports that

''benefits to the bank have far exceeded expectations.'' This led to Mr.

Smith's award being upgraded to become the bank's first platinum award

winner which meant an extra #4,000 to the luckybanker!

Business Diary feels unable to shout Three Cheers but no doubt Dr.

George Mathewson has already done so.

Accountants and that sporting life

The question has to be asked. Do accountants ever do any work? Many

readers will have already answered that in their minds, but the reason

Business Diary poses the question is that we keep hearing news of social

sporting events involving the honoured profession.

It appears that BDO Binder Hamyln are Division Two champions of the

'1982 Curling Club', which is contested between various professional --

not in the playing sense -- groups drawn from Glasgow accountancy and

law firms.

Another strong member of the Curling Club is the Glasgow office of

Arthur Andersen, the accounting practice whose London office has just

announced a merger in certain parts of England with BDO Binder Hamlyn.

In Scotland, however, we are assured that the BDO partners would

rather remain in competition with Andersens, not only on the ice but

also in business, although we are assured this is not to suggest that

there is any icy feelings between the two teams when they meet.

Business, however, should not be allowed to intrude on pleasure for

too long, so back to the leisure activities.

To prove that it is not only accountants who can enjoy themselves,

Tilney & Co, the stockbroking firm, won the First Division Championship

in the Curling Club.

Of course winter sports are now behind us but to prove that they are

all rounders the accountants have already been on the golf course in

large numbers. We can report from the greens that members of the

Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland have already been

trampling over those green shoots before they have even been given a

chance to take root.

A group of the financial wizards recently competed for the 78-year-old

Moore Cup, which has nothing to do with the Almanack, on the Elie Golf

House Club Links.

Gordon Wells, Director of Administration at the Institute of Chartered

Accountants of Scotland explained that the golfing trophy was donated by

the late Alexander Moore.

Tayside won the Area competition and Donald Grant, a past president of

the Institute and a retired member, Stanley Wilson won the individual

event.

Business Diary has until now thought that individual meant single, as

in one person, but we are dealing with accountants after all.

Minds meet at Inverness

VISITORS to the Scottish Conservative Party conference in Inverness

yesterday would have witnessed a meeting of minds if they had dropped in

to the Federation of Small Businesses' fringe meeting in the Palace

Hotel.

Gathered together were delegates from the conference alongside a

rather different type of delegation from Rosyth Dockyard who had

travelled north to lobby the conference.

No, the subject was not the Saving of Rosyth, but the Scottish

Enterprise local network, and neither had the Rosyth workers gatecrashed

the event.

Their presence was as a result of an invitation by Jim Torrance, the

FSB's East of Scotland chairman who had invited the trade union

delegation to come along and share a sandwich with the FSB after the

meeting was over.

However the dockyard workers arrived during the meeting which was

running late because the business of conference was delayed.

The delegation joined in the meeting and John McDougal, who is the

Labour Group leader on Fife Regional Council rose to say that the tragic

death of John Smith had brought people together and perhaps in future

everyone should work closer together.

This contribution was greeted with enthusiasim by the Tory delegates

present which, in all seriousness, must be the first time in many years

that a group of trade unionists has been clapped by a conservative

audience.

Three ride out

of the West

A TEAM comprising three persons from Healey Baker's Glasgow office are

travelling to Edinburgh next month to take on the cream of Edinburgh's

chartered surveyors in the Bonnington Bond Quiz.

To date, 25 three-person teams have entered the competition but Healey

Baker are the lone West of Scotland representatives.

The winners are presented with a Bonnington Bond Quaich and last

year's champions DM Hall are again taking part, led by Max Mendelssohn.