Barfly: No sex, please

FORMER MI5 boss Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller was well prepared for the inevitable questions about TV Spooks when she appeared at the Scottish Leadership Awards in Edinburgh on Thursday.

The only things that bore any resemblance to reality were the entrance pods. In real life, major security crises, we were told, were not solved in 40 minutes by a bunch of “highly sexed” individuals.

Stencil case game

DIAGEO sent special stencils (a shamrock, a dragon and an English rose) out to New Zealand this weekend so that visiting drinkers could enjoy a pint of Guinness marked with their national emblem, ahead of the rugby world cup quarter finals.

Missing, however was a wooden spoon stencil for those Scottish fans – including Craneware chief executive Keith Neilson – who were still there drowning their sorrows.

Tickled pink

STAFF at Ernst & Young’s office in Edinburgh were given a surprise insight into some of their colleagues’ lunchtime habits last week.

Colleagues of Barry Fitzpatrick, a manager in the firm’s financial services tax team, were astonished to find him quoted in an article covering actress Liz Hurley’s appearance at Jenners on Tuesday to publicise Estee Lauder’s pink collection for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

After queuing to meet the star Fitzpatrick damned her with faint praise saying: “She beats a sandwich any day.”

It transpired that he was joined by three other members of the team: Ed Tweddle, Keith Miller and Ian Mullany – all of whom bought a breast cancer pin for their wives.

The biggest ribbing was reserved for Miller, who confessed: “I’ll probably give the pin to my wife, but I might keep the box because Liz signed it.”

Fly me to the moon...

BEING so well connected, Barfly’s inbox overflows with invitations of the social variety. One in particular caught the eye last week and its content demanded a couple of readings.

The “special invitation” was to take in “Celestial Matters”, an “exhibition of artwork created or exhibited on the International Space Station”.

With a pre-reception attended by Buzz Aldrin, below, the second man to set foot on the Moon, followed by a cocktail party, the event certainly sounded appealing.

As the hunt got underway for the Scotland on Sunday Business Desk space suit, a closer reading revealed this Thursday’s event was being staged in a gallery in New York. Just a transatlantic hop? No sweat then.