The Rampant Scotland Newsletter - your weekly insight into what has been happening in Scotland, snipped from the Scottish media, for Scots in Scotland and abroad, bringing you news, events plus a Scottish magazine section. Printed with 100% recycled electrons.
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Historical Affairs - Topical Items from Scotland's Past
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The "Magazine" section includes songs/poems of Scotland, Scottish humour and brief descriptions of Scottish Culture items added recently to the Rampant Scotland Website - with a link to the page where you can find the full feature, if you find the subject of interest to you.
Although some of Scotland's individual football (soccer) teams have been successful in winning some European trophies over the years, the international team has not exactly been crowned with success. Nevertheless, they have a vociferous following of supporters - named affectionately as the "Tartan Army" since roughly the 1970s. Even if Scotland has not won any trophies on the football field, the TA has won over the hearts of many foreign towns and cities (the exception is probably London) with their boisterous good humour, bawdy songs and the consumption of copious quantities of alcohol (both Scottish whisky and local beer) which has given a tremendous boost to many a local economy. The affection which Scots fans generate abroad has resulted (it is said) in some English fans in Europe wearing kilts and "Hey Jimmy" bunnets in order to be more acceptable to the locals. There are various renditions of songs associated with the Tartan Army - here is one of the less bawdy ones! The Tartan Army Here we come...
Hey, hey, we're the Tartan Army
We're just trying to be friendly;
Hey, hey, we're the Tartan Army
Meaning of unusual words:
Mixed Foursomes |
Where else would you like to go in Scotland?
Rail passengers are facing major disruption over the summer as Network Rail, who own the famous Forth Rail Bridge, plan to close the crossing to traffic for every weekend in July - and repeat the exercise every July for five years in order to carry out maintenance work. The railway operating companies Scotrail, GNER and Virgin are being forced to transfer passengers travelling between Edinburgh and Fife or further north onto buses, or make a long detour via Stirling and Perth and describe the situation as "a nightmare". The bridge has to be closed to allow for extensive blasting of the paintwork at track level and it can only be done in the summer when the weather is better and more predictable. The closures had originally been planned for June, but work was postponed to avoid disruption for people travelling to two Robbie Williams concerts at Murrayfield in Edinburgh last weekend which had an audience of 120,000 people. The bridge has not been closed since the 1930s but the latest painting involves stripping layers of old paint off the 113-year-old bridge.
The value of Scottish companies listed on the London Stock Exchange outperformed the market in the last three months. Although the FTSE 100 index of blue chip companies had their best quarterly rise for four years, growing by 11.6%, Scottish companies rose even faster, adding £15 billion or 17% to their market value. Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS (the merged Halifax and Bank of Scotland) led the way with a 20% growth but other media and oil companies did well too.
Businesses in Scotland were warned this week to support the country's only direct European ferry service or see it withdrawn. The Rosyth to Zeebrugge ferry service has proved to be reliable and competitive but has not been supported by many businesses who instead send their freight by road to English ferry ports. The new service started only last year and although freight levels have been increasing, the ferry is still running at a loss. It is hoped that the European Working Time Directive, which limits the number of hours of weekly work may encourage haulage companies to look at ways of reducing the hours of work of their drivers - and the ferry would be one way of doing this. Some companies have reported significant savings using the ferry but other companies seem to have adopted a "wait and see" approach. The illustration shows the Superfast ferry on its way to Zeebrugge, with Edinburgh and Arthur's Seat in the background.
It is being claimed that the building works and the road closures associated with the construction of the Scottish Parliament is having an adverse affect on the number of visitors to Dynamic Earth - a high-tech scientific and educational facility. Dynamic Earth has been struggling financially to make ends meet and the reduction in the number of sight-seeing buses which used to stop at their front door is losing it customers. The four-year-old centre has just had a bid for £1.2 million of Millennium Lottery funding for three new galleries rejected. It had hoped that a revamp - and the eventual opening of the new Parliament building across Holyrood Road - would have increased visitor numbers, especially by attracting back Edinburgh residents who have visited before.
When the private HCI hospital at Clydebank was bought by the National Health Service in June last year for £37.5 million it created a political row. But it was given the challenging target of doubling the number of procedures carried out over the next twelve months - and came close to meeting it. In the year before the takeover, it had carried out 5,000 treatments ranging from endoscopy to heart and orthopaedic surgery. In the first twelve months of being part of the National Health Service, it dealt with 9292 patients. This was achieved partly by increasing the number of staff at the state-ofthe-art hospital from 250 to 370.
Government financial assistance has persuaded Duo Airways, a British Airways franchise partner, to announce new services from Edinburgh to Geneva, Zurich, Milan and Oslo. Earlier this year, government financial support also resulted in the introduction of two new routes from Edinburgh and two from Prestwick in Ayrshire. While there was a general welcome for the new services, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce voiced concern about the way in which the cash was being paid out - with Glasgow failing to win new routes. But the British Airports Authority, who operate Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports, insisted that it was the airlines that chose the new routes and Glasgow was being marketed aggressively. They hope to be able to announce new international air services from Scotland's busiest airport shortly.
When airline passenger numbers fell significantly in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks, the project to create a new air traffic control centre at Prestwick was put on ice with the facility half-built. Now it appears that the National Air Traffic Services, which runs UK air traffic control, is to give the go-ahead for completion of the advanced control centre, resulting in safeguarding 350 jobs at Prestwick and the move north of around 100 controllers from Manchester. Even more importantly for passengers, new computer systems will come on-stream, reducing delays to aircraft movements. That's the theory, anyway.
In its heyday, the Tayside area of Scotland produced 80% of the raspberries grown in the UK as fruit farms used the long summer days to produce a bumper crop. However, over the last 20 years, the industry has been in decline, faced with competition from cheaper imports - with many growers moving over to strawberry growing instead. But now the Scottish Executive has announced that it is to provide finance amounting to £500,000 to help to develop a tastier raspberry which is also able to survive frost and resist disease. The commercial growers are putting in a similar amount of finance. But connoisseurs of raspberries claim that present Scottish raspberries grown in "quality" rain and soil are already the tastiest in the world.
The family-owned Baxters Food Group, which is still based in Fochabers on the banks of the river Spey in Morayshire, has made a number of multi-million-pound acquisitions in recent weeks and is on course to break the £100 million turnover barrier in the near future. The company, which is famous for its soups and jams, has been following an expansion strategy of organic growth and taking over brands that will complement their existing range - while still maintaining its image of quality and "home made". Baxters has been in business for 135 years but has grown by 50% in the last three years, following corporate financier Audrey Baxter taking on the role of chairman and chief executive. Still very much a family business, the company has politely rejected 200 takeover bids.
A barge this week took a commercial cargo from Edinburgh to Glasgow by canal for the first time for 70 years. The Forth and Clyde Canal and the Union Canal used to be an important artery of trade but they went into decline with the advent of railways and road transport. Now, helped by millions of pounds of Lottery funding, they are being revived not just for pleasure craft but now, perhaps, to take some of the traffic away from the overcrowded roads. But the lack of suitable dockside facilities may inhibit growth, at least for a while.
Aberdeen University careers advisers have told students that they should give their nationality as "British" rather than "Scottish" when applying for jobs in England - but promoting themselves as Scottish to prospective Scottish employers usually produces a positive result. The university says that they have included this advice after consulting prospective employers. Emphasising Scottish on application forms can result in a negative reaction with English employers thinking that the applicants are making an issue over their nationality and are rabid nationalists. The same advice is given to English students to quote "British". The university careers service also points out that "British" was an invention of King James VI of Scotland when he became monarch of the United Kingdom.
After a bright weekend in central Scotland, the weather turned cloudy though the amount of rain which fell was only slight. But on Thursday and Friday, as rain held up play at Wimbledon in the south of England, the west of Scotland basked in glorious sunshine and the warmest temperatures in the UK. Glasgow had nearly 15 hours of sunshine on Thursday and more than 14 hours on Friday with temperatures of 23/24C (73/74F) - though Edinburgh went even higher on Friday, reaching 25C (77F).
One of the delights of visiting Threave Castle, in Dumfries and Galloway, is that it is on an isolated island in the river Dee. And so Historic Scotland have to ferry visitors across in a small boat. As the castle does not get a lot of visitors, however, you have to ring a ship's bell on the riverbank to attract the attention of the staff in the small shop to come over and collect you! Later this year, towards the end of August, the castle will be closed for four weeks to allow for improvement work on the two jetties, including the installation of ramps to allow wheelchair access. Hopefully, the ship's bell will not be updated though!
The Roman fort at Ardoch, near present-day Braco in Perthshire, is impressively large. But nowadays only the outline of the huge fortifications can be made out - and apart from a single information board, there is nothing to help the visitor to the site understand its significance. Perhaps what is needed are some actors dressed as Roman centurions - and that was exactly what was seen at Ardoch last weekend. But it wasn't a brave new initiative to attract tourists, just a group of actors taking part in a documentary film about a present-day Pictish stone carver from Bridge of Earn. An opportunity lost! The illustration is of a representation of the Roman Emperor Antonius, responsible for the construction of the wall across central Scotland, parts of which can still be seen today.
Tickets for the T in the Park pop music festival, being held at Balado near Kinross next weekend, have sold faster this year than at any other time in the event's ten year history. There will be nine stages with top bands including REM, Coldplay, Feeder and The Streets to entertain the 110,000 fans over two days. See 
The month of July sees the Highland Games "season" well under way. In earlier times, they allowed clan chiefs to see who were their strongest warriors and select dancers and pipers who would entertain and reflect well on the clan. Now they are a traditional form of summer outdoor entertainment, with local communities expending great efforts to attract both participants and audiences. But increasing health and safety regulations and higher insurance costs mean that some Highland Games are struggling to keep going. Highland Games are taking place throughout the Highlands of Scotland in July.
This year's Glasgow Jazz Festival, from 2 to 6 July, has a brand new look - a stage has been created in George Square in the centre of the city and audiences will be able to see and hear a line-up of international artists performing in a variety of styles from Dixieland to electronic jazz, via salsa, gospel, blues and more. The Royal Bank sponsored "Big Stage" will host the legendary Tony Bennett, plus entertaining performances from the likes of the Jazz Jamaica Allstars and Cuban salseros Mambochambo. The Spiegeltent, an Edwardian wooden tent decorated with scores of mirrors and panes of stained glass, is the ideal venue for more intimate and atmospheric performances from the cream of UK, European and US jazz talent. For further information visit 
Regarded as one of the highlights in Scotland's rural, social and conservation calendar, the Scottish Game Fair, which attracted 30,000 visitors last year, is on target again to have in the region of 300 trade stands over the weekend of 5/6 July. A full programme of events is planned including pipe bands, falconry, the Royal Marines, dog display teams, a terrier show and terrier racing. There will also be tug o' war, Scottish racing's annual 'Mascot Grand National', clay pigeon shooting and fly casting demonstration. The Red Arrows display team will also make a welcome return.
Customs officers at Aberdeen Airport have seized over 40 fake Rangers and Celtic shirts being brought into the country from Thailand. The new-style shirts have only been available for a few weeks, but already fake copies are being sold over the Internet. While much cheaper than the official shirts available from the clubs, they are usually of inferior quality. Rangers recently moved to close down 156 internet sites selling the fakes. The Boys Brigade, a church-related boys' organisation similar to the Boy Scouts, has announced a ban on their members wearing the new Rangers and Celtic replica football shirts - because they are sponsored by Carling and the alcohol-related sponsorship is deemed unsuitable for young members at brigade meetings.
Two City of Edinburgh Councillors, who are supporters of local Hibernian Football Club, have threatened not to renew their season tickets if the club abandons its Easter Road ground and goes ahead with the plan to share a new ground with rival Edinburgh club Hearts at Straiton on the edge of Edinburgh. The councillors fear that such a move could be disastrous for many local businesses in the Leith area, which they represent. The clubs have said that they will consult their fans before making any decision but they believe there is a major financial gain if the move goes ahead.
Aberdeen Football Club has announced that it is to leave the Alternative Investment Market (AIM), saving the club £50,000 a year in management and advisory fees. Shares in the club are only thinly traded, with only 34 transactions in the first six months of 2003. The AIM is designed for smaller companies to have their shares traded and raise capital without having to comply with all the rules and regulations related to a full Stock Exchange listing. The shares were valued at 154p in February 2000 but closed this week at 42.5p.
After a long battle to persuade the football authorities that they should be promoted to the Scottish Premier League after winning the First Division championship last season, Falkirk have at last conceded defeat. The SPL argue that the club does not have a ground which meets the SPL rules - Falkirk had wanted to share a ground with Airdrie United until their own new stadium is completed. But Falkirk could not convince the SPL that they would have first call on the Airdrie facilities. However, Falkirk are still going to take the matter to the Office of Fair Trading and request a full investigation. If the OFT finds in their favour, Falkirk then plan to seek compensation from the SPL.