Stewart Brewing; phone hacking; and the Web User.

Thursday night and in bed early having just overdone things a bit too much today - out for a wee walk but stayed out too long.

So - congratulations to Steve Stewart of Stewart's Brewing at Loanhead, for winning yet another award for his latest beer, "Hollyrood", at a competition a couple of days ago. This beer is doing great having come out as one of the top beers in the world a few months ago in an international festival.

I see that my favourite subject is coming under more scrutiny with a big audit of the Tram Works due to take place, a few questions being asked as to how the overspend was so great and who authorised all the work - I am sure that the Councillors on the so called Committee had no real idea what was happening or any control at all. I am sure that the new Chief Executive of Edinburgh City Council will sort this lot out once she gets her feet right under the table . The first of several public meetings was taking place in the Hilton Grovener Hotel tonight to explain to the public why they plan to ban all cars and all parking in West Maitland Street which will not help our cause once again. Wonder what they are paying to hire the Hilton ?

We now know that Richard Keys resigned as a result of the Andy Gray debacle - so that answered yesterdays unanswered question.

Watched the Australian Open tennis this morning, but of a thrashing for Federer by Jockovitch who played very well - and I believe that Andy Murray forecast the result, so , all being well, by this time tomorrow we should know if he will be playing in the final. Not quite a case of setting the alarm but I will be watching the Murray - Ferrara game in the morning, sore bot or not - come on Andy. It was interesting to hear an Australian comment on the fact that when Andy wins the commentators say he is British, but when he loses he suddenly resorts back to being a Scot !!

On the subject of Auz, their weather is totally crazy, massive floods traveling south through Queensland and into Victoria where the ground is saturated, rivers bursting banks and reservoirs full to the brim for the first time in years. The residents are all paying a flood tax of between One and Five A /Dollars a week, capitol spending on major projects has been suspended to allow for rebuilding, etc. YET in the north of the country they are experiencing the hottest summer on record with one town sitting at a constant 45C for the past five days and another place up to nearly 48 C - unbelievable.
Then we have the opposite in the USA - I checked out Philadelphia, home of the two teams for next weeks superbowl, The Green Bay Packers and the Steelers, and discovered that in Westchester they had had an unexpected winter storm with a foot of snow in a couple of hours, all schools were closed, chaos on the roads and someone killed by a snow plough - just so unpredictable.

I listened to the Defence Secretary this evening defending the decision to scrap the Nimrods and he was saying that the programme is twelve years over deadline and a billions over budget so they are just cutting their losses !!! Who supervises these projects ? there appears to be a total lack of control over any kind of government spending, it is no wonder this country is in the state it is in.
Just add the total misuse and lack of control of the state Benefits system, etc., add umpteen millions in overseas aid, and we might be looking to trying to get bottled water back from the Irish soon.

I was watching the news about the ongoing and new enquiries into the phone hacking, something about to grow more arms and legs, and listened to the acting Chief of the Metropolitan Police - however, what caught my eye was that he was wearing a whistle chain on his uniform - something which we were stopped from doing about twenty five years ago as they were considered redundant and no longer issued (although I did wear mine up till retirement as I wore a proper uniform and not a para military boiler suit).
Originally the whistles were worn by all officers and in the days of yore, when officers patrolled their beats on foot if they needed assistance they blew the whistle and their colleagues on the adjoining beats would come to their assistance. This was the case in most major Cities, however, for a county bobby working on your own you needed a loud whistle as your nearest help might be anything up to ten miles away. I remember chasing someone in Loanhead years ago during the night and I got my whistle out and blew and blew on it between shouting at the bloke and he eventually surrendered thinking that he was running into a trap. There was also the occasion when I found a beautiful porcelain toilet handle on a lovely brass chain ( from one of the pull the chain toilets). I polished up the chain and stuck it in my pocket where my whistle would have been and went out on patrol. I met the late Ernie Rossie and his wife who had a wee cafe in Clerk Street, Loanhead, and while having a coffee with him showed him my new chain which was impressive but when I showed him the handle and explained that this was the latest piece of self defence kit to be issued to Police Officers he was mega impressed, believing everything I had told him !!!

My latest edition of the "Web User" magazine arrived today, complete with my photo in it , taken when I was in hospital, it is amazing what you will do when doped up to the eyeballs - legally and prescribed of course.