Category Archives: Commerce

Continental Car-Rail

Posted on April 8, 2019 by

This week saw the launch of the Caledonian Sleeper’s new fleet of carriages for use on their five overnight Scotland-London routes. After the pleasant but antiquated stock Serco tool over from First ScotRail four years ago. This fleet represents the … Continue reading →

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Haven on Earth

Posted on March 30, 2019 by

Throughout its history, Britain has been driven by global commerce. Even the socialism of the Atlee years were a sensible antidote to private railway, coal, steel, shipyard and health industries on their last legs. Commercialism really got a modern shot … Continue reading →

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Blockheads Dancing on Pinheads

Posted on February 24, 2019 by

I apologise. Normally this blog tries to ring the changes, tries to be informative and even entertaining, as well as highlight the heavier political issues of the day. But less than five weeks to go to Brexit and nobody yet … Continue reading →

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Torysaurus Rex

Posted on February 18, 2019 by

We live, as the Chinese curse goes, in interesting times. On the endless chaos of Britain proving itself incapable of finding an acceptable posture for its place in Europe, any coherence in its posture in the world has gone begging.  … Continue reading →

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A Different Kind of Norway+

Posted on January 13, 2019 by

Norwegian Air Shuttle (NAS) started small. It was founded on 22 January 1993 from the bankrupt wreckage of Norwegian regional airline Busy Bee by 50 then-redundant former employees. Using three Fokker 50 aircraft, they contracted with  Braathens to link the … Continue reading →

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Drought? It’s a Fecking Desert

Posted on December 11, 2018 by

Say what you like about America but, once Britain had wearied of empire-building, the USA pretty much invented the modern world single-handed. China is a great country now coming into its own. But, like its prosperous Asian neighbours their recent … Continue reading →

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Are We All FICO’d?

Posted on November 25, 2018 by

It is a constant amazement how much we still need to learn, no matter how old we get. Six years ago, as I was disengaging from a highly active political life, I set up a small tour business to keep … Continue reading →

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A Testing Time for Democracy

Posted on October 14, 2018 by

With Brexit and Trump testing the resilience of democracy on both sides of the Atlantic, will it cope with a possible fiscal fallout should either fail to address imbalance in wealth? Much to the annoyance of Young Turks with no … Continue reading →

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Our Future Begins Here

Posted on September 12, 2018 by

Those of you who were off broiling yourselves on some distant beach this summer will no doubt have taken along a couple of juicy potboilers to while away the hours on the lounger. If so, you would have missed three … Continue reading →

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Reasoning with the Reivers

Posted on September 9, 2018 by

On Wednesday, I was down in the Borders and lucky enough to hear Mike Russell MSP speak on the vexed topic of Brexit to a crown of over 200 at Selkirk’s Victoria Hall. It will come as no surprise to … Continue reading →

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