POOL the other one. The suits were seething at the New Club. Well, some of them, over rumours that the swimming pool was to be closed permanently. The more upwardly mobile who use it (built into the Princes Street edifice in 1967) were gurgling over their gins and tonic prior to the AGM last week when they were assured that there are "no immediate plans" to scrap it.
What could be done with it in a worst case? "Convert it into a wine-tasting bar," suggests club secretary Charles Ritchie, swiftly adding: "I'm being flippant, of course. I've no wish to alienate myself from our in-house swimmers. There just aren't e
nough of them."
Conversely Brigadier Charles is deadly serious about members' neckwear. London's uppity Garrick Club's six-month experiment allowing their people in without ties at certain times is raising hell, with liberalist Jeremy Paxman at the centre of it.
"Edinburgh is altogether different," stresses the Brig. "Nobody gets into our dining room without a tie. We have a buffet on the top-floor, though, and members can use it sans ties, enjoy a glass of wine and the magnificent view if they so wish."
Out with it, Arch Is it not time you owned up, Archie? What we witnessed at Ibrox on Thursday were a couple of crap teams. As a spectacle this hysterically hyped-up affair merited nil out of ten.
Commentator Archie Macpherson – reputedly a Gers fan and we'd barely believe it – would have earned ten out of ten, done himself a favour, had he said so. And, hey, what did this sleep-inducing event tell you about Italian club football? Any Serie A side of ten or so years ago wouldn't have needed a second leg in Florence to secure a place in the UEFA final.
Flat out at IkeaGood idea at Ikea. They've got five of their employees (Andy Dave and Jamie Thrower and Jim and Allister King) distancing themselves from flat packs while they motorbike round Scotland's coastline (April 26 to May 2) to raise funds for Capability Scotland, the "turning disability in ability" charity.
Ikea at Straiton have 26 co-workers who works alongside a disabled person and plan to have 50 by May next year – ten per cent of the workforce.
They are hosting an achievement reception there for co-workers on Sunday night.
The full article contains 403 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
