Veteran Cycle Club member Derek Baty pedals his penny farthing toward the Forth road bridge at North Queensferry yesterday to promote the Fife Cycle Ways project which is appealing for vintage and unusual cycles for a rally to launch its urban cycle
FLUFFY dogs, girl guerrillas, Kalashnikovs, flaking nail varnish, and blood on the spring onions. It's bizarre, it's ugly, and it's very confused, but there's little doubt that the war and mayhem in Serbia's southern province
THE youngest son of murdered ex-Beatle John Lennon chose a band from the Western Isles to support him for his first-ever concert in Britain. Sean Lennon liked a CD by the band Astrid so much that he called them to support him at the Camden venue in north
Fife figures increase as boy of 13 is accused of dealing on school bus HEROIN and cocaine problems are on the increase in Fife, with an unprecedented availability of heroin for all age groups, writes Raymond Duncan. One 13-year-old has been the subject
It's an old saying - you shouldn't ask others to do something you're not prepared to do yourself. This is particularly true in sales. many a first-class spiel has been brought down to earth with a thump by the question: ''Would
ABOUT 1000 people are set to march through Edinburgh later this month to commemorate city-born Irish republican James Connolly. The estimate is more than double the number who took part in last year's event when violence flared. Lothian and Borders
A food inspector said yesterday that no temperature checks were made on cooked meats when he examined butcher John Barr's premises 10 months before a food poisoning outbreak was linked to his shop. Mr Richard Proctor told the fatal accident inquiry
A company with just nine employees was last night presented with a marine award by the Duke of Edinburgh. Sword Aberdeen, of Aberdeen, which designs firefighting and protection equipment, won the Seatrade Organisation's safety at sea award for its
A Labour back bencher's call to scrap the oath of allegiance to the Queen for Members of the Scottish Parliament was rejected last night by the Government. Mr Dennis Canavan, MP for Falkirk West, said MSPs should be asked instead to make the historic
THERE are no fears for the soft drinks market over at Joseph Dunn Group. As one of the oldest companies in Glasgow, it continues to do well. It was established in 1875 by Joseph Dunn, who built the company up from his trade in selling lemonade from a
The ordinary people of Scotland were invited yesterday by Scottish Secretary Donald Dewar to help run the country. Launching his Democratising Scotland initiative, the Scottish Secretary promised to end party political patronage in public life and to
The pilot of a helicopter in a children's flight involving a Noel Edmonds charity was heard over the radio saying ''I can't see anything'' moments before the aircraft crashed, killing a nine-year-old boy. Two of Captain
A CHURCH of Scotland minister was full of shame and guilt when confronted with a sex secret he had concealed for 26 years, a court heard yesterday, writes Chris Holme. Keith Steven, 58, now of Bolton Drive, Mount Florida, Glasgow, told police: '
THE FATHER of snooker player Stephen Hendry should have been celebrating his first year behind the bar of a village pub yesterday. Instead, Mr Gordon Hendry was ruing the day a landslide on an embankment next to his inn closed off the main road which
Camelot changed the rules of its TV Dreams scratchcards yesterday, in a bid to avoid the embarrassment of not filling the teams competing for #100,000 prizes on the controversial National Lottery Big Ticket show. The show needs eight members of the public
The Government will today dump the problem of prostitution in Glasgow on to the city council, writes James Freeman, Home Affairs Correspondent. A ground-breaking report on the imprisonment of women in Scotland, which will be unveiled today by Scottish
THE surprise at Body Shop is not so much that Anita Roddick is stepping back from everyday management, but that it took her so long to bite the bullet. The group's problems have been evident for some time as competition from other retailers offering
FOR most of his 48 years Paisley-born music business impresario John Reid has lived the sort of life for which pithy tabloid epithets were exclusively invented. Indeed, if you only half-believe one-tenth of the breathless reports of his recent business
I READ with interest the Rev Bill Ferguson's letter, The cost of funerals (May 5), having recently settled my late father's affairs. I am appalled at the cynical level at which the previous Government of supposedly caring Conservatives set
THE Chancellor is to travel to the United States at the head of a cross-party task force designed to win new investment for Northern Ireland. Gordon Brown will accom-pany Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam for the opening stage of a tour of American
GAP Group, the Glasgow-based plant hire company, yesterday announced a near doubling of its annual pre-tax profits to #1.96m and unveiled ambitious expansion plans. The jump in profits from the previous year's #1.02m was made possible by a bounce-back
DONALD Dewar may have his critics, amid the claims that he needs a good spin doctor and that he has made too many gaffes of late. Little of it is true in my book - a more honest politician in the mould of John Smith cannot be found. This belief of mine
n THE Herald reported: ''A melancholy accident occurred at Hunterston, near West Kilbride, on the 2nd instant, by which Mrs Adam Wallace, the gardener's wife, lost her life. Mrs Wallace was in the act of lighting her pipe when her clothes
A disappointing performance on the pub side had a bigger effect upon City sentiment towards Vaux than the positive outcome at Swallow Hotels. The Sunderland-based company is in the throes of choosing a chief executive, with chairman Sir Paul Nicholson
it has been an issue of debate in certain quarters, whether or not freemasons should be compelled to reveal their membership before taking seats in the new Scottish Parliament. Personally, I think that if the administration is to be a success it is absolutely
STRATHCLYDE Homes has a record of successful house-building in west central Scotland going back for about 10 years. Its residential letting arm is much younger, having started only last year. But in tricia Buchanan, there is a rental manager with a
THE Lowland and Border Pipers' Society held their annual competition recently. The main event was won by Jock Agnew of Essex, playing music from a book of tunes compiled by one William Dixon in the eighteenth century. Nothing too strange in all
TRADE unions' hostility to the Government's plans to reform their movement could be greatly defused after it emerged last night that the Prime Minister was willing to give them the right to secure automatic recognition if 50% or more of the
Like most volume manufacturers, Ford is constantly slipping new versions of existing models into its catalogue. There have been several examples of that recently. For example, the 2.5-litre V6-engined ST 24, most characterful of the Mondeo saloons, now
FORMER England international footballer Gary Lineker yesterday capped a visit to Scotland by officially opening the country's first purpose-built ''home from home'' facility run by the charity Cancer and Leukaemia in Children
T THE main challenge in adapting a popular movie for the stage is not so much to do with form as with audience expectation. Not long ago, I overheard someone coming out of Richard Baron's fine and funny staging of The 39 Steps at Perth Theatre,
7 Winton Drive, Kelvinside. three bedroom ground floor conversion; offers over #160,000. Clyde Property THIS B-listed property occupies the entire ground floor of an elegant semi-detached turn-of-the-century villa and has direct access
The fall of the last Retail Price Maintenance agreement in the UK is a step nearer with the Government's commitment to referring the pricing of over-the-counter medicines to the Restrictive Practices Court. Pharmacists say it will be their death-knell
Acliche has it that you should never believe anything you read in the newspapers. Well, last week's allegations that a recent Carlton documentary about Colombian drug smuggling was pretty much a work of pure fiction suggests that you can now extend
BY mid-morning today, when Scotland's World Cup squad for France will be known, the names missing will perhaps be as significant as those who are included. Some will have been sent home to try again. However, that will not apply to others on the
A FIVE-year-old girl whose mother faces deportation to Jamaica for dealing in cocaine is to be allowed to stay in Scotland with the woman who has looked after her since she was a baby. Three appeal court judges conceded there was no ideal solution for
ROBIN COOK rode to the defence of his diplomats yesterday and emphatically denied claims that they were involved in ''any kind of conspiracy'' to ship arms to mercenaries in West Africa. The Foreign Secretary insisted neither he nor
Model Caprice will make her sitcom acting debut, as the ideal woman, this summer. She will appear in the ITV show Loved By You as the dream date of Gregory's Girl actor John Gordon-Sinclair The 26-year-old one-time Wonderbra girl, who is trying
I AM outraged to see that Sheriff James Fraser at his court in Dingwall has fined an old age pensioner #600, no less, because the pensioner had kept a family antique, an old ''stick'' gun older than himself, some 100 years old, without
PPG International has confirmed that it may bid against Akzo Nobel for the Courtaulds chemicals group. The US paints and glass giant said that it is co-operating with investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and is in talks with Courtaulds, which
LOVE AND ZEN IN THE OUTER HEBRIDES by Kevin MacNeil Canongate, #7.99 One of Kevin MacNeil's short Gaelic lyrics laments: Poor old man - leaves/gazing at the moon for/a gloomy church. It seems to sum up the psyche of many people of the island of
THE Government's nuclear inspectors yesterday ordered the shutdown of Dounreay's entire fuel cycle area, including all its processing and reprocessing plants, following the safety fiasco which knocked out power supplies last week. The move
Chances of diagnosis and treatment are assessed by Alan MacDermid, Medical Correspondent, following publication of clinical indicators INEQUALITY of access to specialist treatment is to be a target for the Government's review of acute services in
SCOTTISH Industry Minister Brian Wilson yesterday praised the workforce of Continental Tyres at Newbridge, near Edinburgh, for accepting more flexible working practices which have brought prosperity to the once threatened plant. Flexible shift arrangements
A SCHOOL dinner lady in Lanarkshire is believed to be the first person in Scotland to qualify for the Jobseekers' Allowance during the summer holidays. Until now, the Government's Benefits Agency has argued that ancillary staff laid off by
Lisbon, Celtic's players attempted to come to terms with the departure of their coach Wim Jansen yesterday, but the club captain, Tom Boyd, admitted that it was difficult for them. Boyd also urged the board of directors to put a new coach in place
DEEP in commuter-belt Sussex, Eva Hanagan cuts a curiously home-spun Highland figure. She knits her own Fair Isle jumpers, sews her tweed skirts, bakes shortbread and oatcakes. Her novels have similar domestic qualities described by one reviewer as &
A MAN who was imprisoned for nearly three months after he was charged with his father's murder but who has never been brought to trial now plans to sue the police. Mr James Donaldson was held after the death of his father, a security guard, in 1995
MICHAEL Donnelly (May 9) rightly defends one of Scotland's great democratic heroes, Thomas Muir, against the brash prejudice of Michael Fry's ''The New History of Scotland'' (May 7). Fry is a clever writer, but his polemics
Double act: two academics are to become the heads of their respective churches this year. The Rev Professor Alan Main, 61, left, of Aberdeen University, is to be the next Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. His divinity colleague
THE City impatiently awaits the appointment of Vaux Group's new chief executive. Executive chairman Sir Paul Nicholson hopes to announce the name within several weeks and, in due course, Sir Paul will take up a non-executive role. However, he indicated
THE Scottish Labour Party yesterday moved to suspend an Edinburgh councillor who is alleged to have helped a friend's mother get a new council house. Labour Party chiefs in Glasgow, anxious to show they want to enforce high standards of conduct
AS sunlight-tinted liquid falls drip-dripping into dark oak barrels, a voice-over for the whisky advert of the twenty-first century could go like this: ''Our 10-year-old malt is conceived of water softened by billion year old peat. It is born
THE possibility that Celtic will go Dutch again was strengthened last night as sources in Holland suggested that the club may be interested in bringing Dutch national coach, Guus Hiddink, to Parkhead as successor to Wim Jansen. A 2-1 defeat in Portugal
YOU report (May 7) that ''ordinarily a sheriff has no power to stop the press taking notes''. This was in an article by your Highland Correspondent, concerning the Skye Bridge tolls. On occasion, I have asked a newspaper to send a
THE use of cannabis and hard drugs in Scottish jails will continue to be punished equally despite yesterday's announcement by the Home Office Prisons Minister in England and Wales that inmates caught using cannabis there would be treated more leniently
BRITAIN'S drugs czar made it clear that he was totally opposed to the legalisation of cannabis at a conference in Aberdeen yesterday, despite evidence from a Dutch police chief that his country's liberal attitude was succeeding. Rotterdam Police
The news that nearly eight out of 10 MPs believe Third World debt should be cancelled by the year 2000 is a measure of the impact of an extraordinary campaign. For a decade the issue of the unpayable debts of the world's poorest countries has haunted
Rhythm of Life: Bonnie Langford during rehearsals yesterday for her lead role as the tart-with-a-heart in the Broadway musical, Sweet Charity, which opens at London's Victoria Palace Theatre next Tuesday. Picture: PAUL TREACY
A crash between a car and a train at a level crossing in Ayrshire yesterday has led to calls for the crossing to be made safer. Two councillors claim that their appeals for barriers to be reinstated where the rail line to Ardrossan Harbour crosses the
the Tories yesterday called for the Scottish Parliament to be handed sleaze-busting powers to investigate council corruption. Tory constitutional affairs spokesman Liam Fox, speaking during the report stage debate on the Scotland Bill setting up the
TWO horses that have been called plenty of rude names could be leading the charge for the feature at Perth tonight. Briar's Delight and Pariah, both far from the easiest of rides, are among the 10 declared for the #6000 Famous Grouse Handicap Chase
A FORMER Scotswoman of the Year is fighting an unfair sacking claim against a charity for the elderly. Mrs Peggy O'Donnell was sacked last year for gross misconduct by the Dixon Community, a project to help the elderly and housebound in the South
LINDA Trotter had mixed feelings about her handicap rising from 36 to 40 under the revision which came into effect in February and allows women a ceiling of 45. ''It was nice to get the extra four shots but it sounded worse,'' said
RANGERS will be without the two most important players in their side of recent weeks when they try to collect some reward for a long season in the Tennents Scottish Cup final against Hearts at Parkhead on Saturday. Manager Walter Smith received confirmation
Conrad Wilson lauds the revival of the first successful British operatic comedy A NEW production of Albert Herring is always - or should be - an event. More than half a century after George Christie, Glyndebourne's great but diehard founder, advised
BIFFA, the waste management arm of water company Severn Trent, has extended its toehold in Scotland with a second small acquisition in the Central Belt. It has acquired Tenants Skips based at Forth in Lanarkshire. This will be integrated with the waste
Mary Brennan EVEN before the lights dim, Senza Tempo is dealing in intriguing images. For, as we file into the long, vaulted tunnel at the very back of the Arches, the Blonde is already sitting on stage: unconcerned, elegant, enigmatic amid an unruffled
EXCLUSIVE FEARS that the #50m deficit left by the former Strathclyde region might soar by up to #30m have been flagged up to officials of the 12 successor unitary authorities. The additional debt relates to Government grant settlements dating from 1990
EXCLUSIVE A GROUP of 30 UK universities, including seven in Scotland, have started a breakaway move to block what members see as Government plans to introduce a national curriculum for higher education. They are concerned at moves to include '&apos
This year's event offers some exciting new fringe developments, promises Michael Tumelty OVER the years - the decades - the annual Perth Festival has been nothing if not consistent. Though it tends to be referred to in less than complimentary terms
HAIR has a place all its own when it comes to beauty treatments. As a crowning glory it is lavished with exotic shampoo and conditioners, cut, coloured and pampered, while a bad hair day is a universally understood expression. Meanwhile, for some people
Ooh! Aren't they cute? Isn't it so nice of the park keeper to bring all these people in to keep us amused? Lemurs Ray, Gizmo, and Fingers check out their surroundings as they bask in the sunshine at Whipsnade Animal Park's new enclosure
A MEMBER of an all-male singing group from the United States had to be treated in hospital in Edinburgh for a broken nose after refusing demands for money by a beggar. Edinburgh Sheriff Court had been told the attack, in the city's Grassmarket,
A police chief was so determined to solve the murder of a young Celtic footballer that he and two colleagues fabricated a confession from the accused, it was claimed at the High Court in Edinburgh, yesterday. It had been decided that Lawrence Haggart
SCOTTISH company Foreign Currency Services (FCS) joined battle yesterday with the mighty Thomas Cook and other travel agents by launching a currency-by-phone service for holiday and business travellers. FCS, a family business based in Cumbernauld, but
PLANNING approval was given yesterday for a #38m entertainment complex in Glasgow city centre. It will provide a 20-screen cinema, bars, nightclub, restaurants, health club and shops. A multi-storey car park will provide 1437 spaces. The project is planned
THE SNP's special conference next month will be given a completely free vote on a measure to get more women into the Scottish Parliament, to the dismay of supporters of gender equality who had hoped the leadership would endorse the plan. It is official
HUNDREDS of street prostitutes in Scotland are infected with the potentially fatal hepatitis C virus, and experts believe up to 200 of them face a premature death within a few years. The women have pleaded for the authorities to take notice and warned
AN inadequate mother who shook her three-week-old son to death was freed yesterday after appeal court judges quashed her three-year jail sentence. Carol McIsaac, who admitted the culpable homicide of her son Shane, has now been placed on probation for
Billy Joel croons Don't go changing in the popular lurve song which perpetuates the romantic myth that those who have been stung by Cupid's pointy sticks are so besotted by the object of their affection that they want their partner to stay
Since the General Election New Labour has treated trade unions with contempt. Honeyed words for the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors, and the poisoned chalice for the TUC. The Bernie Ecclestones and Lord Symons of this world
A MAN was in custody last night after a joint police operation by English and Scottish police forces to trace a six-year-old boy who was thought to have been abducted. Detectives from both sides of the Border had joined forces in a bid to trace the boy
Comedian Tony Slattery said yesterday that his two-year battle against drink and drugs made him an ideal choice for rector of Dundee University. Slattery, who backs the legalisation of cannabis, described his installation as rector as ''the
WITH all of its 82 employees fully trained to use the Internet, e-mail and various other information and communication technologies (ICT), the Malin Court Hotel in Turnberry is a prime example of what Scottish Enterprise would like to see more small
FOUR people were rescued last night by Largs lifeboat after using their mobile telephone to alert police when their dinghy was swamped by a wave. The four were off Hunterston jetty on the Clyde when the dinghy took in a large amount of water. Fearing
A GRADUATE trainee who claimed she was not offered a permanent job as she was pregnant has won her sex discrimination case and #1500 compensation for injury to her feelings. An industrial tribunal in Dundee has also continued the case brought by Miss
n The man with cod Shakespearean blood in his literary veins reaches the giddy heights of fame tonight with an Omnibus propgramme devoted solely to the ego that is Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare. Joining a pantheon of cultural giants Jeffrey - as his
LINGERING fears of an imminent rise in US interest rates rattled investors in London yesterday and sent blue chips slumping by more than 1%. With British and American markets braced for today's US producer prices and retail sales reports, the benchmark
MORE than 6000 manufacturing jobs in the West of Scotland could be lost if the M74's 4.8-mile ''missing link'' across southern Glasgow is not completed, a confidential Government-funded report has concluded. The study, which
BATH captain Andy Nicol has become the latest player to withdraw from Scotland's summer tour party after suffering a serious hamstring injury in the dying stages of his side's defeat by Newcastle on Monday night that will keep him sidelined
IN his review of Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin by Alexandra Richie (April 30), Frank McLynn attacks the book with great aggression, holding, it would appear, its greatest sin to be not treating Karl Marx as a deity or at least an icon.
SUPPORT payments to Scottish agriculture could be cut by up to #60m, the National Farmers' Union of Scotland's general purposes committee heard yesterday. The threat comes from the adoption of the euro by 11 European Union states and the lack
IAIN Robb began his working life as a car salesman and the directors of an estate agency that he'd sold some vehicles to were so impressed with his technique, they came back and offered him a job. Eight years ago, he decided to set up on his own
THE media must not allow the Dr Ian Oliver controversy to disappear until the senior politicians who intervened explain why they did so, Sir David English, chairman of Associated Newspapers, suggested yesterday, writes Graeme Smith. Sir David was speaking
ABERDEEN look almost certain to break their wage structure in an effort to sign Middlesbrough's unsettled player, Craig Hignett. The Dons have agreed to meet 28-year-old Hignett's wage demands of #8000-a-week in a bid to persuade him to move
SCOTLAND'S business community is on a par with the world's most technologically advanced countries, but there are continued concerns that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) north of the Border have been slower to embrace the information
THE wife of an elderly man who died in a fire in his Irvine home has also died in hospital, police confirmed last night. Mr Thomas Waddell, 76, and his wife Charlotte, 74, were taken from their smoke-filled home in Livingstone Terrace by firefighters
Bahr booked her Oaks place with a victory in the Musidora Stakes at York yesterday that increased the possibility of fellow fellow and Godolphin stablemate Cape Verdi lining up for the Derby. After a cosy success over the odds-on Midnight Line, who was
EVERY sharp secretary needs a pencil. Only, in this age of the modem, we're talking about skirts not writing instruments. For that office staple - the slender, knee-length tailored skirt - is setting fashion hemlines in the workplace once more
The cost of buying a home is rising, but the upward rate could peak by the end of this year. The good news for Scotland is that home ownership is still more affordable than the UK average - unless you are a first time buyer. According to Cheltenham &
JACK Webster's column (May 4) recollects the Empire Exhibition of 1938 for an older generation, an occasion which I dimly remember as spectacular and exciting. I do, however, recall a more recent memorable experience of 10 years ago, a day out
Everton striker Duncan Ferguson is to marry in his own match of the day during the World Cup competition. The Scot will marry fiancee Janine Tasker at Liverpool Cathedral on Friday, June 26. After the ceremony the Great West Door will be opened for Ferguson
THE man tipped to become the next leader of the Philippines yesterday set out to prove that politics really is no laughing matter. Former movie star Joseph Estrada, currently vice president and well ahead in the presidential campaign, is generally regarded
AN MP has demanded answers over the involvement of a leading QC in the E-coli inquiry. Mr Frank Roy, MP for Motherwell and Wishaw, says he has ''grave concerns'' that former Solicitor General Paul Cullen QC, may have had access to
ON Saturday, one of the most loyal club servants in the history of the Scottish game will be hoping to take his place in the Hearts side that faces Rangers in the Scottish Cup final. For 18 years John Robertson has loyally served the Tynecastle club,
IT poisons the air we breathe, it strangulates our towns and streets; like a gleaming projectile it has hidden teeth. Like the swarming of soldier ants, wherever it goes, the environment dies. It decimates and vandalises both town and country. It is
Lord Of The Dance star Michael Flatley will bow out of his multi-million pound show with a spectacular outdoor event in Hyde Park. The world record-holding dancer said yesterday that the show, on July 25, may well be his last live dance performance.
A SWIMMING pool in the West End of Glasgow, closed as part of the city's cuts in education spending, is to have a new lease of life as a club during this year's West End Festival, writes Keith Bruce. The shoestring festival, on a grant of #53,000
SITAR music has the unfortunate reputation of being associated with flocked wallpaper in Indian restaurants, but 25-year-old Niladri Kumar, the fifth generation of a family of sitarists making his UK debut, has changed all that. Kumar and 28-year-old
SCOTTISH manufacturers and their counterparts in the East Midlands and South-west of England continued to enjoy strong growth in the first quarter of the year, while those in the rest of the UK were having to contend with falling or stagnant output.
I AM disappointed that Blair McDougall (May 7) should have so misread my letter that he thinks I was writing in defence of SNP economics, factual or fictional. I was, rather, trying to raise a point of fundamental importance and shall be grateful for
SCOTLAND coach Jim Telfer found himself in the unaccustomed role of mediator last night when a club versus country row threatened to break out, with Scotland finalising their preparations for their tour of Australia and London Scottish focusing on a
A Belgian aristocrat who works as a charity promoter in Edinburgh plans to present himself to the Scottish Parliament as Scotland's King. The 40-year-old young pretender, who lives in a flat in Edinburgh's New Town, wants a referendum to give
A WALKER who fell on to rocks from a clifftop on Sunday night has died in hospital in Aberdeen. Mr Alan Fotheringham, 36, of Thorsdale View, Thurso, failed to recover consciousness after sustaining severe head injuries in the 25ft fall. He had been walking
MIDLAND Bank chief executive Bill Dalton was in Scotland yesterday for the official opening of the bank's first Scottish customer service call centre at Edinburgh Park, west of the capital. The centre began operating last September and employs 300
AN American company has had exploratory talks with Government officials about the possibility of running ''failing'' British schools for profit, its chairman revealed yesterday. Mr Benno Schmidt Jr, chairman of The Edison Project,
A battered mother, who wanted to be known only as ''Susan'', told officers at the conference that abuse against her began as soon as she was married. ''I could tell by the way the door banged when he came home if it was
A PACKAGE of measures aimed at preventing a repeat of last year's grants chaos, which left 50,000 students without any money at the start of term, was yesterday unveiled by the Government, writes Carlos Alba. Scottish Education Minister Brian Wilson
AGRICULTURE Minister Jack Cunningham faced angry farmers yesterday as they picketed a meeting of European farm ministers at a hotel in Newcastle. They arrived under police escort, but as soon as he got off the bus, Cunningham set off to confront a group
As Anita Roddick bows to the clamour from shareholders for change at the Body Shop, Kirsty Scott looks at a life less ordinary than most in the City. MOST chief executives watching control of their company slipping from their grasp might be tempted
ABERDEEN For a dingy area where most businesses are closed in the evening, an extraordinary number of cars circulate Aberdeen's harbour district. There are no saunas or massage parlours, so it is on the Granite City's dockside streets that
DETECTIVES in Edinburgh were last night hunting an armed robber in his late 20s who held up a bookmaker's shop in the city's Gorgie Road late yesterday afternoon. The man, who was said to be of slim build with black hair, and was wearing a
IT'S about a year since the Rachmaninov Trio last played on their native heath - which sounds a bit Irish, given that the group is comprised of two Russians, one American, and their native heath is Glasgow. Anyway, following the temporary indisposition
Theatre Shockheaded Peter, Tramway, Glasgow T DID I imagine it - or did several adults instinctively tuck their thumbs deep inside their fists merely at the mention of the ''great, long-legged Scissor Man'' . . . And as Martyn Jacques
A COURT ruled yesterday that the five-year-old daughter of a woman who faces deportation to Jamaica for drug-dealing should remain in Scotland with a white foster parent. The natural mother, Miss Althea Matthan, 22, reacted furiously to the ruling.
INDIA, which conducted three nuclear tests so that it might be taken more seriously by the rest of the world, now waits nervously to see the results. In India itself there was jubilation, and newspaper headlines proclaimed that India was now next only
RICHARD Gough, who will play his last match for Rangers in Saturday's Tennents Scottish Cup final, revealed yesterday that his ultimate aim is to come back to Ibrox - as manager. The Rangers captain, who will leave to join American club San Jose
Conservationists are trying to find out why a rare butterfly, the Orange Tip, is on the increase in Scotland. Gardeners are being urged to send details of place and times of sightings of the spectacular butterflies to the Kelvingrove Art Galley and Museum
Reputed to be the former home of doctor, author and playwright A J Cronin, who was born in the nearby village of Cardross, this mid terrace three-storey Victorian town house in Helensburgh retains all of the character of the era while having been extensively
THE pharmaceutical industry in Europe last night welcomed the overwhelming endorsement by Euro MPs in Strasbourg of legislation which will allow them to patent biotechnological inventions. The outcome was a complete reversal of the European Parliament
What do the Beast of Bolsover, Mr Dennis Skinner MP, and the leader of Sierra Leone, President Kabbah, have in common? They both came urgently to the defence of the beleaguered Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cook, yesterday, the former describing him as
ALMOST 3000 domestic violence incidents have been dealt with by Strathclyde Police in the two months of a campaign tackling crime against women and the fear of crime, but these are just ''the tip of the iceberg'', Chief Constable
ANITA Roddick is to take a back seat in the Body Shop cosmetic retail chain, which she founded 22 years ago with a single shop in Brighton. She is to step down as chief executive to become joint chair with her husband Gordon in July. French executive
AN elderly woman who is believed to have been injured when she was hit with a frying pan during a dispute between neighbours has died, police said yesterday. Mrs Isabel Brown, 74, died in the Mayday Hospital in Croydon, South London. It is thought she
Police saw a pensioner drive along a main road while reading a newspaper. When they stopped William Atherton, 81, he was able to tell them all the headlines of the day. Atherton, of Elder Street, Tranent, pleaded guilty by letter yesterday at Haddington
MUNICH-based BMW yesterday quashed speculation that it might improve its #340m bid for Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, trumped last week by a #430m offer from German rival Volkswagen. BMW chairman Bernd Pischetsrieder stressed to his company's annual meeting
I READ with interest the letter from Patrice Fabien (May 5). Scottish banknotes are not and never have been legal tender in Scotland or anywhere else. Most accepted and recognised international currencies are issued by a central bank while, though denominated
INDUSTRIAL gases group BOC suffered from the Asian economic crisis and the strong pound in its first quarter, and the wounds have since deepened. Unveiled yesterday, half-year profits to the end of March slumped 17% from #216.4m to #179.8m before tax
Colin Montgomerie and his new caddie Andy Prodger forged an impressive partnership yesterday, with the Scot reeling off nine birdies in a practice round for the Benson and Hedges International. Europe's No.1 was deprived of regular caddie Alistair
THERE may indeed be people in football who have never heard of Alastair Wilson . . . it is just that they could be hard to find. Mention the name to, say, Kevin Keegan or Walter Smith, Jack Charlton or Kenny Dalglish, Graeme Souness or Alan Shearer,
It is just as well to be aware that any controversial proposition can be improved by an economic impact assessment and, conversely, that any proposition can just as neatly be dished by such an assessment. This is not to say that professionally executed
