Freddie Goodwin, Banks, Birds, and Stripper

Airdrie Bank and Sir Freddie Goodwin

The good folk of Airdrie in Scotland must be scratching their heads in bewilderment this week. After all, it’s only very recently, 2002 in fact, that Airdrieonians FC, their football team founded in 1878, had to fold due to bankruptcy, with debts approaching £3 million. Fortunately a local man, Jim Ballantyne, bought out the ailing side Clydebank, relocated the club to Airdrie, and a new club was born, with the name Airdrie United.

It now seems that the Chief Executive of Airdrie Savings Bank, Britain’s smallest, is to open a new branch in South Lanarkshire, and is considering disgraced Sir Freddie Goodwin for the manager’s post. This is the guy who was forced to quit the Royal Bank of Scotland last year, when the Government stepped in with an emergency bailout. RBS revealed earlier this week that Sir Fred’s acquisition of Dutch rival ABN AMRO would cause record losses of £28 billion for 2008. Compare this to the £790,000 profit that the Airdrie bank made for that year.

Surely the 60,000 customers and 103 staff of this small but successful bank, must be hoping that Jim Lindsay, the Chief Executive, is talking tongue in cheek. Otherwise, they might as well splash out on bigger mattresses sooner rather than later.

Stripper’s Shoe

A nightspot is being sued for £18,000 by a man who was hit on the nose by a stripper’s platform shoe. The lawsuit alleges that the XTC nightclub management allowed the dancers to wear “improper attire”, and asked strippers to perform dances that made the stage a “hazardous area”. Yusuf Evans, from Ohio, claims that he has had difficulty in breathing since then. Given the nature of the entertainment, methinks that he had difficulty in breathing even before the shoe made contact.

Bird Count

The annual bird count is now upon us. I wonder if I should include the blond neighbour on my left, and the brunette who resides on my right?