Waddell emerges in role with Browns’ charities

FORMER Daily Record editor and ex-Big Partnership spin doctor Bruce Waddell has surfaced at his new job – a charity run by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife, Sarah.

Glenn Crocker had to disappoint his audience last week when he said BioCity hadnt actually invented a time machine. Picture: Contributed

Waddell left public relations firm Big Partnership in June but had remained tight-lipped over the identity of his new employer, only saying it was a charity with offices in London and New York.

Now The Scotsman has learned that Waddell is working at A World At School, an initiative set up in 2002 by Sarah Brown’s charity, PiggyBankKids, to help the 57 million children around the world who don’t go to school.

Waddell was in New York last week to mark the first anniversary of the United Nation’s Global Education First Initiative, for which Gordon Brown is one of the leading lights.

Absent rival at New Club

THERE was a good turnout last week for the Scottish launch of Iain Martin’s book on the downfall of Royal Bank of Scotland, including a number of seasoned journalists – though one was notably absent.

Word reaches us that Ian Fraser, author of a rival book which was supposed to be published at the same time as Martin’s, had been hoping to attend the event at Edinburgh’s New Club. Among those who did get along were financier Sir Angus Grossart, former RBS spinner Andrew Wilson and fellow PR operatives Malcolm Robertson and Kevin McKenna.

Martin, a former editor of The Scotsman and Scotland on Sunday, was able to celebrate his book Making It Happen being shortlisted for the Business Book of the Year, which will be announced in November.

Time travel at BioCity

THOSE clever people at BioCity Scotland are busy creating lots of medicines and medical devices – but it turns out that they haven’t invented a time machine just yet.

In his excitement at having 180 delegates at BioCity’s life sciences funding conference last week, managing director Fraser Black told the audience that the incubation centre had opened at Newhouse, in Lanarkshire, in 2020. The following speaker, BioCity UK chief executive Glenn Crocker, moved swiftly to correct Black’s slip of the tongue.

“We haven’t invented a time machine yet,” Crocker joked. “It was 2012 we opened, not 2020.”

Park life for charity night

LEADING lights from the IT sector will have their fingers crossed for good weather on Friday night when they sleep out under the stars in Holyrood Park in Edinburgh to raise money for Action for Children.

Figures taking part in Byte Night – which has been running for 15 years now – include Rhona Hutchon, director of Harvey Nash Scotland, Pufferfish chairman Iain MacKay and Edinburgh Napier University research fellow Adrian Smales.

When the event began 15 years ago, 30 sleepers raised £35,000. Since then, the event has grown to 1,000 sleepers across the UK and has raised £5.2 million.

Studying their pint glasses

IT’S the course that all students dream about – “beer school”. Now freshers at Newcastle University are going to be taught about the brewing process and job opportunities in the micro-brewing industry in the hope of cultivating “a responsible approach to the consumption of alcohol”.

Helen Davison, manager of Ellon-based micro-brewer BrewDog’s bar in Newcastle, will be teaching the students, with topics on the course including “Does a stout go with Stilton?”, “Know the difference between your India pale ale (IPA) and your lager” and “Identifying different ingredients in beer”.

Davidson said: “It’s a shame that many young people in Britain are woefully under-educated about beer and alcohol, and this definitely has a part to play in the alcohol abuse we see amongst young people, especially students.

“What we hope to do with this beer school is to get students to fall in love with good beer.”