If you’re a working man or woman, resident in Aberdeen and reading this, contain yourself for a couple of minutes when I inform you that employees in the Granite City are awash with dosh.
Oh look, it’s another survey; this time by the property group, Zoopla, which says that while workers in Aberdeen “are the richest in the UK” – I know, I can’t believe it either – those in Glasgow and Edinburgh are among the poorest.
There, doesn’t that make you feel better?
On the other hand, you might well be thinking: “How did they arrive at that conclusion?”
Apparently, the highest average monthly salary in the UK is earned by workers in London, followed closely by those in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.
But, it’s cheaper to rent a property in Aberdeen than it is anywhere else in Scotland – well, that’s new – and has the second cheapest cost of living in the UK.
Who’d have bet on that?
What we do know is that, with Covid, things ain’t what they used to be, although I suspect all those in Aberdeen and its environs who’ve been made redundant or furloughed won’t give a fig about the survey’s findings.
They’ll be too absorbed with worrying how they are going to make ends meet.
Incidentally, should you be thinking the data collected for this exercise is out of date, it isn’t.
Researchers did their stuff between June and the end of August this year.
So we’re right up to speed and, despite our dear leader at Holyrood slapping a lockdown on us a few weeks ago, jeopardising businesses and their personnel, we’re still better off in Aberdeen than anywhere else in the country.
Before you lose your rag, don’t shoot the messenger.
Now that the oil and gas industry’s staffing levels have been decimated, office buildings, restaurants and bars are lying empty and the Aberdeen “workers” referred to in Zoopla’s little PR stunt are applying in larger numbers than ever before for Universal Credit, they can at least content themselves knowing they top a questionable league table.
Pubs’ ice protest just melted away
There’s nothing like a good old protest.
Tipping buckets of leftover ice on Union Street was a third-rate event.
Had the bucket bearers been instructed to chuck their cubes into one pile as a kind of ice mountain, it might have made more of an impact than the several pathetic little hillocks that quickly, like the protest, melted away.
Pensioner’s epic climb should be fit for a Queen
I am in favour of people being recognised for outstanding achievements, especially if they fancy a day at Buckingham Palace to receive their award.
But, while peerages and knighthoods are often dished out to those who have donated to political parties (and let’s not forget their charity work) or made a mint in business (and done charity work), there is more than a hint of the class system when the British honours come around.
This has been underlined by the reintroduction in 2012 – thank you, David Cameron – of the British Empire Medal, scrapped by John Major in 1993, who believed the distinction between the BEM and MBE had “become increasingly tenuous”.
He wanted more local people to receive their awards from the Queen herself and not from their nearest Lord Lieutenant in some local authority building followed by a cup of tea and a scone.
Margaret Payne, the 90-year-old who climbed the height of the 2,398ft mountain Suilven on her staircase to raise £358,000 for the NHS, Highland Hospice and the RNLI in her own area of Lochinver, has been awarded the BEM.
Surely that astonishing effort was worth more.
It sends out the message that her achievement wasn’t quite good enough for an MBE, a trip to Buck House and a chat with the Queen.
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