Granite

I remember that my father gave up making home brew around the mid 80's because, as he put it "It was too cheap and easy to get absolutely hammered every night." The thing is with a little practice and knowledge (which I picked up from dad, a biochemist), it's not hard to make something that's a damned sight better that the 10 for £5 offers in the supermarket, and which seriously contests with proper real ale for taste. Given that real ale is never on those cheap offers, I might go back to it one of these days. The big problem for those of us currently renting one-bed shoeboxes, is that there's no bloody room to do it, not the effort involved.

As long as you're not obsessive about it, computer games are a very cost effective way of spending your leisure time, in third place behind browing the internet and watching TV (which I've come to avoid, as it's now more of a pointless waste of leisure time than something I enjoy). A long single player game will last 40-50 hours, and can usually be replayed with different options. Multiplayer games have virtually unlimited play time if you like them (especially if you've got friends who play as well). MMO games like World of Warcraft, well, they're extreme cases, but there's a reason why news outlets keep going on about MMO "addiction", and they're only around £10 a month, cheaper than a single evening in the pub, and some people are still playing the same game after eight years. Though I have to conceed, buying a PS3 is about the most expensive route you can take for playing computer games. Using a PC or the cheaper 360 or Wii is much more sensible if you're trying to save. A handheld's often even better, as you won't suffer from the idiotic notion the you have to have a 42" plasma screen to get the "Full effect".

I'm good friends with my local landlord in Edinburgh (the wife used to work there), and she says that the whole industry is hanging by a thread. While the smoking ban was a bit of a blow to start with, things bounced back really quickly, mainly because smokers quickly adjusted to popping outside, and a lot more customers started to come in who normally wouldn't drink in a smokey pub. However, over the last year or so there seem to be a huge number of regulations popping up to hassle real ale pubs and breweries, generally under the heading of health and safety, which seem utterly pointless for small pubs. From discussions, it seems like the government has something against small independent pubs, and only wants custom designed chain pubs like Wetherspoons. The wild disparity in prices between chain pubs and everyone else is a bit of a hint (IPA £1.50 in Wetherspoons, £2.75 everywhere else). Thankfully my local's propped up by the fact it's a legendary whiskey selections (over 180 single malts) which tends to attract the tourists, plus a very solid crowd of regulars.

As someone who doesn't follow football, I groaned when I found out about this. I'm flying to Russia the same day for the start of my honeymoon, so rather than a fun and exciting flight to a distant city where British visitors are a ratiry, I'm going to be assumed to be one of 50,000 football fans, and probably jammed on to a plane full of noisy drunks. <groan> I had the teller asking me this morning which team I was supporting when I picked up my rubles. Don't get me wrong, I've no problem with people going out and supporting their team, I'm just being selfish 'cause it's probably going to have a negative effect on what I want to happen. Anyway, they can't follow me to Mongolia. Probably. Though one thing to be considered is Visas. It took me six weeks to get mine, and apparently when the clubs asked for fast processing of Visa's, Russia's response was pretty much "Nyet". Unless UEFA swing something, it may be the quietest final the league has seen in a long time.

That's my regular route to the pub (I live on Rodney Street, and usually drink in either the St Vincent or Kays) and yes, the number of white boards is most impressive. Dublin Street and Scotland Street are pretty cluttered with them as well.

Figures for 2002 (Sorry, can't find anything more recent). http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/01/19092557/5 At that point, renewable (hydro & wind farms) was around 11% of energy generation. I imagine it's gone up since then. Recent quotes I've hear put it at 13%, but I don't know if that's electrical generation or total generation, which in 2002 was only 5%. Thing is, compared to a lot of countries, Scotland's got it pretty good in an oil crisis. A reasonable quantity of renewables, and more nuclear reactors than the average. It's certainly be unpleasant, but we're better off than most.

Actually, there's only one major gas power station in Scotland. Most electricity is generated via nuclear or coal. However, gas is usead heavily for heating in remote areas, so it is the fuel resource used most. I saw one of these panic buying idiots yesterday outside my flat. A Range Rover with the back full of jerry cans which he was using to fill up.... a supercharged Jaguar XJ. Nice way to conserve those dwindling fuel stocks mate!

I could see this happening as sson as it went through the £1 barrier. They were forced to back down on that point a few times, but as soon as it went over, I was betting the price would go up steeply to make up for lost time. Thankfully I only run a small car, and my office is 10 minutes walk away, so I'm not affected much. Frankly I think the government are getting it wrong by just continually encouraging public transport (without, it seems, putting any real money in). They should focus on working from home. Nearly everyone in my office could work from home with a reasonably fast internet connection. That'd cut fuel bills, congestion and free up a load of office space in city centres in one simple move, but unfortunately governments and corporate directors tend to be quite luddite in their thinking.

The article that had me staring in horror was GM announcing a new diesel electirc hybrid that gets less MPG than my eight year old diesil hatchback. Americans may build things well, but they seem to have no idea how to build anything efficently.

It is. My colleagues are happily informing me that prices won't go down in Edinburgh because of these incredibly difficult to qualify "differences".

IBM has wound down. I think all thy do out of Spango Valley is some of the admin duties. Nearly all those buildings (which were manufacturing plants) are empty. On the other hand, there have been one or two new sources of employment start up like the RBS Mortgage Centre.... aww crap. Seriously, it appears that Inverclyde has manged to time it almost exactly wrong. They've finished switching over to being commuter towns for Glasgow at the point when house prices in Glasgow have started to drop and commuter towns aren't so popular any more.

I give extremely good odds that this will only be available to teachers, nurses and the unemployed. Anyone foolish enough to work for a living without the backing of a powerful union will, of course, be left with bugger all.

Actually, after a quick search (and a query of the fiancee, who works for RBS) here's an interesting thing: Scottish bank notes aren't legal tender. Anywhere. Even more strangely, English bank notes aren't legal tender in Scotland, so effectively Scotland has no legal note tender. They're all promissory notes, which are effectively the same thing, but odd to know. Second fun fact: All those Scottish notes must be backed by Bank of England notes held by the banks. Since there are billions of pounds worth of Scottish notes in circulation, the Bank of England actually prints special one million pound notes so the Scottish and Irish banks can store them more easily. It's be nice to find one of those dropped in the street.

All Scottish banks can commission notes. There are currently RBOS, HBOS and Clydesdale notes in circulation. However I believe the actual printing is only done in one location.