The Scotsman back issues from August 2008:
Is Cairngorms extension a Munro too far?
Aug 01, 2008; ... Europe's biggest national park needs to expand, some believe.Others say it may then be too big for one body to manage, writesJohn Ross FROM Grantown-on-Spey to the heads of the Angus Glens, fromBallater to Dalwhinnie and the Drumochter Pass, the CairngormsNational Park is already ...
Business news at a glance: A clear view to higher revenue
Aug 01, 2008 ... OPTOS, the Dunfermline-based retinal scanning company, said itwas on track to secure revenue growth of up to 25 per cent for thefull year after revenue in the nine months to 30 June topped dollars73 million (GBP 37m). Optos - which installs ...
Business news at a glance: Good times for Invocas
Aug 01, 2008 ... INVOCAS, the Edinburgh-based debt resolution company, saidweakening macro-economic trends meant it expected demand for itspersonal debt and corporate insolvency services to increase from thesecond half of 2008 and into 2009 ....
US sales force lands ProStrakan drug deal
Aug 01, 2008; ... PROSTRAKAN is reaping more rewards from a deal to establish anAmerican sales force, helping it secure a licensing deal for acancer pain drug in the US. The Galashiels-headquartered company signed a deal with US groupNovaquest last year that, pending approval of its treatments, ...
Stay-at-home hard times lift Sky
Aug 01, 2008 ... BSKYB has reported its biggest rise in customers for five yearsin a sign that hard-pressed consumers are choosing to stay in andspend more on home entertainment. The pay-TV group posted a better-than-expected rise in netcustomer additions in its fourth quarter, at 92,000, taking ...
Livingston's first results show BT looking 'a bit sick'
Aug 01, 2008; ... ANALYSTS yesterday described BT as looking "a bit sick" as sharesin the telecoms giant tumbled 12 per cent amid fears over margins. Scots-born Ian Livingston, unveiling his first set of resultssince becoming chief executive, said underlying earnings in thefirst quarter had nudged ...
Carphone cuts broadband and revenue numbers
Aug 01, 2008 ... CARPHONE Warehouse, the mobile phone retailer that owns theTalkTalk landline and broadband service, has cut its forecast fornew broadband customers. It now expects to add between 200,000 and 250,000 subscribers inthe year to March 2009 - down from 400,000 predicted in ...
'Edinburgh is my spiritual home'
Aug 01, 2008; ... He got his first taste of the capital's festivals in 1965 - nowBrian Cox is putting aside his film-making to support aninternational strand, he tells Tim Cornwell WITH a peaked cap scrunched down over plain glasses,inconspicuously sipping a skinny latte in a Fringe venue cafe, ...
The Diary
Aug 01, 2008; ... Cathy starts on the wrong track QUESTIONS over the ability of MSPs to organise a jolly good timein a brewery are often made - not least because a beer-producingestablishment was the previous occupant of the space now filled bythe Scottish Parliament. However, those seeking ...
One step back in GBP 6.5m Waverley stairs plan
Aug 01, 2008; ... THE epic climb up the Waverley Steps facing passengers leavingScotland's biggest railway station will continue for at leastanother year after it emerged yesterday special permission isrequired for plans to install lifts. The delay is the latest setback for the GBP 6.5 million ...
Dairymen welcome 1p-a-litre milk price rise, but say it's not enough
Aug 01, 2008; ... THERE was a cautious welcome for the announcement yesterday thatFirst Milk, the farmer-owned organisation with 2,600 members inScotland, England and Wales, is to increase its ex-farm price by 1pper litre, as from this morning. Dairy farmers, despite price increases in the spring, ...
Potato crop seems to be coming to boil
Aug 01, 2008; ... INCOMES for the arable sector are under increasing pressure,especially with the recent sharp fall in the price of feedingbarley. However, the prospects for the potato crop appear better thanaverage, though it will be many weeks before the final positionbecomes clear, and much ...
Dressed for the fest?
Aug 01, 2008; ... Beijing residents have been issued with behavioural guidelinesfor the Olympics - should Edinburgh do likewise for its festivalvisitors? Alice Wyllie offers a few tips IT'S NOT only Beijing's buildings and public spaces that arebeing spruced up for the Olympic Games - its residents ...
It's a tourist no-show as VisitScotland issues alert
Aug 01, 2008; ... SCOTLAND'S national tourism body last night admitted there wasstill "widespread" availability of accommodation in Edinburgh thismonth, on the eve of the Fringe's opening weekend. Thousands of rooms are still available across the capital, withmost of the city's major hotels unable ...
'No problem in taking our money'
Aug 01, 2008 ... WHILE those queuing at the Fringe Office in the Royal Mile havebeen telling The Scotsman of their ticket woes, growing numbers areregistering complaints on its official website. Amanda Lam said: "The Fringe is a joke this year. It doesn't seemto face any technical problems in ...
Plea for new art festival funding deal
Aug 01, 2008 ... THE chairman of the Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF), the grouping ofmore than 40 galleries that launched their summer exhibitionsyesterday, has called for three-year funding to stabilise andstrengthen the event. Tessa Jackson said the festival, which had 600,000 visitors toits ...
Business Gazetteer
Aug 01, 2008 ... HAPPY CAMPERS Summer all boxed up FOR every loser during the credit crunch, there seems to be awinner too. The latest business to benefit from the economicdownturn seems to be Thule, the Swedish firm that makes roof boxesfor cars. As more Britons chose to holiday at ...
Greggs has recipe to beat the crunch
Aug 01, 2008; ... GREGGS is weathering the economic downturn as consumers hit bythe credit crunch continue to snap up its pasties and sausage rolls. The no-frills bakery chain, which has about 170 stores north ofthe Border, said like-for-like sales had risen 5.8 per cent in thepast six weeks, an ...
HBOS predicts a 20 per cent fall in house prices by end of 2009
Aug 01, 2008; ... HOUSE prices will plunge by up to a fifth over this year and nextin the face of spiralling energy prices and tough economicconditions, the Scottish banking giant HBOS warned yesterday. The Edinburgh institution said it had been hit by a 36 per centleap in bad debts as customers ...
'No sacred cows' for HBOS as credit crunch brings 72 per cent slide in profits
Aug 01, 2008; ... THE prevailing economic gloom is set to continue for the next 12months, HBOS chief executive Andy Hornby predicted yesterday. Unveiling the Edinburgh-based bank's half-year results, Hornbysaid there were "no sacred cows" on possible asset sales at thebanking giant. Shares ...
Inside Westminster: Miliband's move hits a nerve
Aug 01, 2008; ... TUCKED between The Mall, which runs from Trafalgar Square toBuckingham Palace, and Pall Mall, lies the official residence of theForeign Secretary. It was here that the drama of David Miliband's move to placehimself in the shop window of future Labour leaders unfolded thisweek ....
Rumblings in the ranks as Brown urged 'sack disloyal Miliband now'
Aug 01, 2008; ... LABOUR appeared to be a party at war with itself yesterday whentwo back-bench MPs called on the Prime Minister to sack DavidMiliband, his Foreign Secretary, for alleged disloyalty. The call came as Mr Miliband tried to dampen speculation he wasplotting to secure Gordon Brown's job ...
Hard times drive rise in National Express passengers
Aug 01, 2008; ... NATIONAL Express says it is carrying more than one in six peopletravelling from Edinburgh to London as part of a modal shift towardsrail. The owner of the prestigious East Coast rail franchise saidyesterday that the line had increased its proportion of those usingall modes of ...
Froggatt heads for US to target oil firms
Aug 01, 2008; ... NOBLE Group, the Edinburgh-headquartered investment bank, hasopened a US office to tap into the burgeoning oil and gas market. Headed by Mark Froggatt, previously a director based in London,the office in Houston, Texas, will have the same small and mid-capcompany focus as its UK ...
People of Beijing told what not to wear
Aug 01, 2008; ... THE Little Red Book, the sayings of Chairman Mao, has beenreplaced by a little red booklet that instructs Beijing's residentshow to act and dress ahead of next week's Olympics. Citizens are ordered not to dress in more than three colours,wear white socks with black shoes or parade ...
Blast from the past is world's oldest gag
Aug 01, 2008; ... WHAT do you get if you mix an ancient Sumerian, a team ofacademics and a dose of spousal flatulence? The world's oldest joke. Laughter, it seems, can echo across the millennia with therevelation that a team from the University of Wolverhampton hascompiled the top ten oldest ...
Q & A: Professor Neil McKeganey
Aug 01, 2008 ... Professor Neil McKeganey, The professor of drug misuse at theUniversity of Glasgow comments on a report suggesting police arelosing the war to stamp out the problem of drugs. Drug taking is so widespread across the social classes, shouldn'tthe government just accept that leisure ...
Family 'devastated' at death of stab victim
Aug 01, 2008; ... THE family of a man stabbed to death in a block of flats spokeyesterday of their devastation at the killing. Christopher Branigan, 41, died on a tenement stairwell inAberdeen on Tuesday evening after being attacked. His blood-coveredbody was found by shocked neighbours ....
CD Of The Week: Randy Newman: Harps & Angels: Playful or just wilful?
Aug 01, 2008; ... RANDY NEWMAN: HARPS & ANGELS *** NONESUCH, GBP 11.99 A FEW years ago, writer and filmmaker Jon Ronson decided to putall his usual thorny character studies to one side and have some funcelebrating his favourite singer/songwriter in a documentary. He setout, with evangelical zeal, ...
Music Reviews: New Releases: Pop
Aug 01, 2008; ... UNKLE: END TITLES ... STORIES FOR FILM *** SURRENDER ALL, GBP 9.99 THE material on this sprawling fifth album from James Lavelle'songoing collaborative project has, as the title suggests, been"inspired by the moving image". But don't get carried along with anyromantic notions - he ...
Pooling resources
Aug 01, 2008; ... THE appearance all at once of three new contemporary artexhibition spaces in Edinburgh is something to celebrate and, as faras I can see, they have not had a penny of public money betweenthem. Two of them, the Dovecot Studios and the Ingleby Gallery, arereally substantial. The third, The ...
Faces Of The Week
Aug 01, 2008; ... KEIRA KNIGHTLEY ACTRESS Hooray to the second-highest paid actress in Hollywood (GBP 16million last year) for refusing to allow Photoshop enthusiasts toamplify her bust for the poster of The Duchess. Famously slender (she takes after her father, insists mum ...
Tim Cornwell's Diary: See Emily play with the brecciated onyx
Aug 01, 2008; ... EMILY Young was 15 when the late Syd Barrett, the Pink Floydfront man, saw her at a London hang-out. "He apparently had a visionof me, he woke up out of a dream in which he had seen me in a forestin a long white dress floating on a river for ever and ever," shesaid. The result was the ...
The Fringe made simple for fans of folk and jazz
Aug 01, 2008; ... FEAR ye not the all-singing, all-dancing lunacy of the Fringe.Those looking for folk, jazz and other music can gainfully thumbthrough the orange-headed music pages of the Fringe programme. Acomprehensive preview is impossible here, but, taking a deepbreath ... For traditional and ...
Visual Art Review: Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller: The House Of Books Has No Windows: Rooms for the imagination
Aug 01, 2008; ... JANET CARDIFF AND GEORGE BURES MILLER: THE HOUSE OF BOOKS HAS NOWINDOWS **** FRUITMARKET GALLERY, EDINBURGH IT'S a tough job these days getting an audience to suspend itsdisbelief. We're wise to the ways of illusion, whether in film,performance or installation. How does an artist ...
Overdue overtures
Aug 01, 2008; ... HISTORY has consistently dealt Sergey Prokofiev a bum hand. Hewas unfortunate to have been born in 1891 into a Russia poised forrevolutionary upheaval and cultural diktat. A musical voice thatseemed destined to carry the torch of Tchaikovsky or Mussorgsky intothe 20th century saw no ...
Scots Stocks: BowLeven surges as analysts take a gamble on Cameroon oil find
Aug 01, 2008 ... BOWLEVEN, the Edinburgh-based, West African focused oil and gasexplorer, leapt yesterday as traders took bets on the significanceof its find in offshore Cameroon. While analysts said the announcement eased suspicions that thewell was dry, chief executive Kevin Hart said yesterday ...
Scrutineer: Not quite a nightmare
Aug 01, 2008; ... HBOS 290.5p +19.25p AstraZeneca 2,468p +78p HBOS chief executive Andy Hornby does not expect any improvementin the testing economic climate over the next year. He says that, beit on unemployment, house prices or other data, there is virtuallycertain to be ...
Shell hits record GBP 7.9bn on oil surge
Aug 01, 2008; ... ROYAL Dutch Shell yesterday reported a 5 per cent rise in second-quarter profits to dollars 7.9 billion (GBP 3.98bn), powered by thesoaring oil price. This gave the British-Dutch oil giant record profits of dollars15.6bn (GBP 7.9bn) for the first six months of the year, ...
Thus shares investors' discontent over C&W offer
Aug 01, 2008; ... THE board of Thus, the Glasgow telecommunications group, concededit was disappointed with the offer it received from Cable & Wirelessbut holds little hope of an improved bid. More than 150 shareholders attended yesterday's annual generalmeeting in Glasgow, with many expressing ...
On track to smart card tests
Aug 01, 2008 ... ELECTRONIC smart cards could be tested on Scotland's busiest railroute with a view to revolutionising tickets. Season ticket holders on the main Edinburgh-Glasgow line wouldsee their documents replaced with credit-card size plastic passeswhich would enable tickets to be ...
Holyrood faces its own winter of discontent as 150,000 vote to strike
Aug 01, 2008; ... SCOTLAND faces a potentially crippling industrial dispute asunions representing more than 150,000 council employees yesterdayannounced their members had voted to strike. On the day that many Scottish Government civil servants took partin a one-day strike over pay, GMB Scotland and ...
All Scotland's trains to get Saltire livery
Aug 01, 2008; ... SCOTLAND'S trains are to be rebranded with a permanent Saltirelivery, The Scotsman can reveal. The "ScotRail - Scotland's Railway"branding will give the network its first-ever uniform look, sweepingaway different colour schemes used in the east and west. The move by Transport ...
Television Review: A laughable look at serious matters
Aug 01, 2008; ... My Strange Brain, Five Harley Street, STV AS SHOWN in the new medical science/gawp-at-the-afflicted series,My Strange Brain, Mohammed Dowd suffers from chronic narcolepsy. Hisattacks are so dangerously frequent that he has to wander around hishouse wearing a protective ...
Now children up to 12 can be kitted out for a uniform GBP 4
Aug 01, 2008; ... THE cost of a school uniform was cut to GBP 4 yesterday, inprices not seen since the 1970s. The three-item outfit for children aged from three to 12,excluding shoes, goes on sale this weekend at Asda, at a flat price,regardless of age. The supermarket claims the reduction ...
Wi-fi link and easier e-mail
Aug 01, 2008 ... FREE wi-fi internet connections are being considered forpassengers on the main Edinburgh-Glasgow rail line. Ministers are expected to ask First ScotRail for a detailed studyinto the move, to attract more business people to travel by train. National Express East Coast already ...
Hot Topic
Aug 01, 2008 ... Hibs' dire pre-season form has not pleased the Easter Roadfaithful and the 3-0 friendly defeat to Clyde prompted these postson scotsman.com Mixu Paatelainen was my favoured candidate for the job. Show'sover now Mixu. Yes, his hands have been tied by penny pinching chief ...
Bunfight at the XK corral as Jaguar fans celebrate 60 years of speed and style
Aug 01, 2008; ... IT'S exactly 60 years this month since Jaguar set the motoringworld alight with the launch of the XK sports engine, which would goon to power sports and executive saloons for more than four decades. It would be another couple of months before the engine was readyfor launch in the ...
How the General began the tussle of the muscle cars
Aug 01, 2008; ... ONCE upon a time, General Motors was the biggest and mostpowerful car-maker in the world. It was also one of the mostconservative, letting others take the risks with new designs then,once the risk had been minimised, bringing its vast financial andproduction muscle to bear to flood the ...
Leader: Brown must show some real leadership
Aug 01, 2008 ... A STATE of near civil war now appears to have broken out in theParliamentary Labour Party. Many are furious at a recent newspaperarticle by David Miliband, which conspicuously failed to supportGordon Brown's leadership, while Mr Miliband's supporters are openlydefying the Prime Minister ...
When will Labour feel the ground shifting underneath its feet? If the United Kingdom is going to survive at all, it may be by moving to a federal constitution
Aug 01, 2008; ... POOR Gordon Brown. Poor David Miliband. Poor Cathy and Iain andAndy and all of them. Poor, poor Labour. If the party has an inklingof the seismic shift in our political life that is now under wayacross the UK, it is hiding it well. Its leadership contenders sofar appear condemned, like ...
Robert McNeil
Aug 01, 2008; ... Double-glazing on yer fizzog is strange enough, let alonepretending you need it THE nation was intrigued to read that fashionable and normalpeople alike are wearing spectacles and feeling no shame. This is anexcellent development in the ongoing liberalisation of society,taking ...
Forget exercise - a pill could make you fit
Aug 01, 2008; ... IT IS the couch potato's ultimate fantasy - a tablet that keepsyour body slim and fit without you having to move a muscle. Dubbed the "exercise pill", it could one day revolutionise how wethink about staying in shape and keeping off the pounds. But before throwing out the ...
Rangers bereft of ideas with Ferguson on the sidelines
Aug 01, 2008; ... RANGERS will take their place in the third qualifying round drawof the Champions League this morning, but that is now the onlycertainty of their participation in this season's tournamentfollowing Wednesday night's leaden performance against Kaunas atIbrox. The scheduling of the ...
Stanton urges Hibs to show unity Club legend says players must band together after 846 minutes without goal
Aug 01, 2008; ... THE fall-out from Hibs' disastrous pre-season continuedyesterday, with a fans' representative pleading with the Easter Roadboard to back manager Mixu Paatelainen with sufficient funds.Legendary former club skipper Pat Stanton has also called for unityamong the players as they seek to ...
'No problem in taking our money'
Aug 01, 2008 ... WHILE those queuing at the Fringe Office in the Royal Mile havebeen telling The Scotsman of their ticket woes, growing numbers areregistering complaints on its website. Amanda Lam said: "The Fringe is a joke this year. It doesn't seemto face any technical problems in taking our ...
Rumblings in the ranks as Brown urged 'sack disloyal Miliband now'
Aug 01, 2008; ... LABOUR appeared to be a party at war with itself yesterday whentwo back-bench MPs called on the Prime Minister to sack DavidMiliband, his Foreign Secretary, for alleged disloyalty. The call came as Mr Miliband tried to dampen speculation he wasplotting to secure Gordon Brown's job ...
Tourism bosses issue alert as thousands of rooms remain empty
Aug 01, 2008; ... SCOTLAND'S national tourism body last night admitted there wasstill "widespread" availability of accommodation in Edinburgh thismonth, on the eve of the Fringe's opening weekend. Thousands of rooms are still available across the capital, withmost of the city's major hotels unable ...
GBP 2m in sales puts International Festival in the pink
Aug 01, 2008 ... IT APPEARS the credit crunch is yet to take its toll on theEdinburgh International Festival, with over GBP 2 million of ticketssold a week before it starts, its director said last night. Jonathan Mills revealed that the event looks set to break even,and could even cut some of its ...
Talk of French bid fuels British Energy's stock
Aug 01, 2008; ... LONDON FTSE 100 CLOSE 5,411.9 -8.8 SHARES in British Energy nudged higher last night ahead of anexpected takeover announcement this morning. French firm EDF is expected to confirm a GBP 12 billion agreeddeal to buy the East Kilbride-based nuclear operator, according ...
Hearts cut debt by GBP 1m a minute Romanovs both absent, but shareholders unanimously back debt-for-equity plan to slash GBP 12m from deficit
Aug 01, 2008; ... HEARTS slashed their debt by GBP 1million per minute duringyesterday's brief and harmonious extraordinary general meeting.Director Sergejus Fedotovas convened the meeting in Tynecastle'sGorgie Suite at 11am, and by the time he called proceedings to ahalt at 11.12am, shareholders had ...
Paatelainen orders up to nine players to move on
Aug 01, 2008; ... HIBERNIAN manager Mixu Paatelainen is preparing a clear-out atEaster Road just eight days before the start of the new season. The Finn has lost patience with up to nine members of his firstteam squad after a troubled pre-season campaign. The latest setbackcame in the shape of an ...
Hannon's Prolific has potential to add to trainer's run of successes
Aug 01, 2008; ... GIVEN the number of winning youngsters he has sent out thisseason, there could hardly be a more apt winner of today's two-year-old race at Goodwood than Richard Hannon's Prolific. The colt has already contributed one victory to his trainer'samazing tally of over 40 juvenile ...
Academy's Forrest switches to centre role
Aug 01, 2008; ... SCOTT Forrest has been switched from the back row to centre asthe Scottish academy coaches strive to develop strength in thepositions in which Scotland is struggling for depth. The Scotland sevens cap was a leading figure on the IRB sevenscircuit last season and has been knocking ...
Passionate Chalmers pushing his young squad to achieve their goals Ambitious Melrose coach passes on his experience
Aug 01, 2008; ... CRAIG Chalmers knows what it takes to reach the pinnacle ofScottish rugby, having played for Scotland in 60 Tests and worn thefamous British and Irish Lions jersey. As a result, the 39-year-old enters his third season as aDivision 1 club coach with his club Melrose not only ...