Barfly: Red faces at Fred's quip

HAS comedian Fred MacAulay nailed his colours to the political mast ahead of May's Scottish Parliament elections?

The BBC Radio Scotland host was performing his master of ceremonies duties at Scottish Enterprise's life sciences dinner on Thursday - the seventh time in a row he has performed at the event - and ruffled some of deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon's feathers. MacAulay welcomed the "deputy first minister, future first minister, ladies and gentlemen", making reference to the fact that Labour leader Iain Gray was a guest on one of the Scottish Government's tables.

Quick as a flash, Sturgeon stood to deliver her ministerial address and said: "Thank you for that introduction Fred. I'll pass on your best wishes to the First Minister for his continuing lengthy success in the role."

MacAulay struggled to pronounce the names of the companies shortlisted for awards and the names of their drugs. "If I was Colin Firth then I'd be getting an Oscar nomination for this," he quipped.

'Bargain' booze is hard to swallow

Alec Carstairs, oil and gas transactions partner at Ernst & Young, was unavailable to comment on the firm's annual review on the sector on Wednesday because he had departed that morning for Peru, where he is spending a week building houses for homeless children. He is a member of the Vine Trust, a Scottish-registered charity that works to allow individuals to "make a real and significant difference to some of the poorest children and communities in the world". Its website reveals that the trust will be moving into a new office and education centre on board a barge in Leith, where Forth Ports has given it a free berth for 20 years.

Trust in Alec to help Peruvian children

Having had some support for our campaign to get Scottish restaurants to stock Scottish beers, we turn to pricing.

It's some time, we know, since you could buy a round and pocket change from a fiver. Given inflation, duty hikes and a taste for increasingly exotic tipples, a 20 note is the minimum required for drinks with a few friends these days.

Therefore it's good to see one watering hole in the heart of Edinburgh's Old Town come up with a "bargain".

Said establishment has been sporting a hand-written poster proudly offering "A pint for ONLY 3.70!" At our reckoning, that's a good 50p more than the average for the area.

It may be a responsible-drinking riposte to the two-for-one, happy-hour, binge-drinking culture, but it still looks like an offer that's a little hard to swallow for most.