Alan Sinclair clocks up mileage and cash

A month later and the non-executive director and former employee of Fife timber firm James Donaldson & Sons crossed the finish line at the firm's Leven sawmill on Thursday, having battled his way through "almost every weather condition imaginable".

Sinclair, who turns 66 this year, cycled around all 24 of the group's branches, which are spread throughout the UK, with a team of other riders to raise cash for Columba 1400, a charity that works with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to teach them leadership skills.

The team has raised nearly 5,000 to date and is set to clock up about 6,000.

While Nasa's space shuttle Atlantis braved the rain to blast off from Cape Canaveral on its final mission, husband-and-wife brewing team Caroline and Carl Wengler suffered no such weather-induced problems with the launch of their "Atlantis 135" real ale, which is named after the mission number for the final shuttle flight.

Their Houston Brewery, which was built in 1997 in a disused cellar beneath the couple's Fox & Hounds pub in Renfrewshire, has launched a space-related beer each month this year following a contest to name its latest ales.

Caroline says: "The last flight of the Space Shuttle is such a momentous event that we wanted to make a special beer to commemorate the extraordinary achievements of Nasa, so Atlantis 135 was born."

Nasa's astronauts were up at the crack of dawn for yesterday's launch and someone else who will be rising early is Capital FM Scotland presenter Adele Cunningham, who has been named as the new host of its Saturday breakfast show.

Cunningham says: "It's a privilege to be working with the Capital Scotland team, especially Paul Cooney (managing director] and Stuart Barrie (programme controller], who I have always looked up to.

"I'm really excited to be working at Capital Scotland."

Capital has been known as Beat 106, XFM and Galaxy.