Category Archives: Commerce

Looking a Sea Horse in the Mouth

Posted on June 20, 2012 by davidsberry

Yesterday, Marine Scotland published a controversial report on fish stocks in the Firth of Clyde as the Clyde Ecosystem Review. Whereas two years ago, a similar report had predicted that the estuary was “about to become a marine desert” this … Continue reading →

Posted in Commerce, Environment | Leave a comment

Who You Calling ‘Foreign’?

Posted on June 19, 2012 by davidsberry

I often wonder at the genuineness of unionist ‘confusion’ at what Scotland being a normal country would involve. Every other day another academic is dragged out from some ivory tower to furrow his distinguished brow over whether the sun could … Continue reading →

Posted in Commerce, Community, Politics | Leave a comment

Can’t Get There from Here

Posted on June 15, 2012 by davidsberry

Readers of a gentle disposition in no mood for a rant—much less an anorak rant—are advised to point their browsers elsewhere. Yesterday I spent the day trying to pull together a coherent picture of public transport in the North Berwick … Continue reading →

Posted in Commerce, Transport | Tagged | 2 Comments

In Deep Guano

Posted on June 14, 2012 by davidsberry

After years of biting my tongue, I have put myself on our major local charity’s ‘shit list’. This week, East Lothian Council’s new Cabinet approved a paper several years in the making, setting up an arm’s-length North Berwick Harbour Trust … Continue reading →

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But Don’t Mention the War

Posted on June 7, 2012 by davidsberry

It seems that last weekend’s jubilee was a big hit across Germany. Several channels carried coverage and there appears to be a certain fascination with things ‘Englische’. Some touchy Scots find the endemic continental verbal sloppiness between ‘British’ and ‘English’ … Continue reading →

Posted in Commerce, Politics | Leave a comment

Drachmatis Personae: Angela vs Bob

Posted on May 21, 2012 by davidsberry

In my second Silicon Valley job 30 years ago, I launched the engineering department of a start-up PC company years before IBM rolled out the PC or Apple the Macintosh. ACS was run by the most plausible Southern good-ole-boy salesman … Continue reading →

Posted in Commerce, Politics | 1 Comment

All In It Together?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by davidsberry

You don’t hear that phrase much these days (especially from ConDem spokespersons). Perhaps it’s because the stats for this last year—the year that Osbo forecast we’d start to see the positive effect of a paper money mountain for his banker … Continue reading →

Posted in Commerce, Community | 1 Comment

The Other Auld Alliance

Posted on May 1, 2012 by davidsberry

Down our way, Labour candidates for Thursday are banging on about jobs and buses, as if their political lives dependent on it. Which they do. That is unfortunate for them; the SNP has already sorted the local problem with buses, … Continue reading →

Posted in Commerce, Politics | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Innumerati

Posted on April 17, 2012 by davidsberry

This week, it appears that Ed Milliband has finally succeeded in doing what he has clearly been desperate to do for months—seize the political agenda. He did this by proposing something daring and radical and which must therefore run against … Continue reading →

Posted in Commerce, Politics | 2 Comments

Economic with the Argument

Posted on April 15, 2012 by davidsberry

Some of my more volatile colleagues have come close to seizure with this weekend’s issue of The Economist, whose cover carries a waspish map of ‘Skintland’ and whose densely packed articles include a record three that discuss Scotland. Having been … Continue reading →

Posted in Commerce, Politics | 2 Comments