Recently in Tourism Category

My wife and I recently spent a very pleasant weekend on the Isle of Mull. The scenery was stunning and the whole experience was very relaxing. We stayed at the Highland Cottage in Tobermory run by hotel industry veterans David and Jo Currie and were treated to superb food in their intimate little restaurant.
Like many people in the tourist industry in Scotland they have worked hard to create high standards and deserve to do well. Sadly the weekend we stayed the restaurant was not full though it deserved to be. It is more important than ever for us to support businesses like these and I can assure you I enjoyed the car and ferry journey to Mull much more than the many hours I have hung around airports in recent times! Don't forget what's on your doorstep.

First off a confession as this blog entry may be slightly skewed by my rose-tinted personal experience.

You see I was one of thousands of primary school children taught to ski at the Midlothian Snow Sports Centre - known as Hillend to everyone - in Midlothian so have some quite fond memories of it.

Learning to snowplow, trying to grab the button tow properly, hurtling down the main slope with carefree abandon and laughing hysterically as friends fell over and hit the mat are all part of my childhood.

I'm not alone in having fond memories as a Facebook campaign with more than 26,000 members is dedicated to saving the facility.

Hillend's future, or lack of, has been on the agenda for the past few months with Midlothian Council struggling to subsidise what is now a loss making venture.

What with holidays, snow, podcasts and magazine deadlines for Insider I didn't quite manage to round up 2009.

Rather than go through the big stories and events I want to do it a bit more personally and look back at the large profile interviews I did during the year.

Each chunk below has a link to the interview if you want to read a bit more.

The first one I did in 2009 was appropriately enough, given the current weather, in a snow covered Falkirk industrial estate with Jamie Rae of Redeem. He was extremely honest and open which for an interviewer is great.

Then I was off up to the Raploch to speak with Campbell Christie about the regeneration in Stirling, football and politics.

A slightly shorter journey saw me going downstairs from my office to spend an hour with Margaret Laidlaw from Tenon to discuss accountancy, entrepreneurs and the recession.

What price advertising on the Google homepage?

The search engine giant is an almost ubiquitous presence on the web with upwards of two billion searches performed on it every day.

So when its logo undergoes one of its periodic creative overhauls, usually to celebrate an event or anniversary or some kind, it is big online news.

In the past Google has enhanced its logo for everything from Sesame Street and Asterix to climate change and Remembrance Day.