Pot Holes and Vanishing ATMs –

Good News on the Horizon?

2018 was a strange year and this year is probably going to be strange too. We seem to be inundated with news that isn’t so good. What with post offices closing and rural communities under stress. Now the good people of Scotland are facing an uphill battle to access their cash after a large number of bank and cash machine closures. Research found that 339 Scottish bank branches had closed their doors since 2015 and 290 ATMs had been withdrawn in the past year. I don’t know about you I have to get in the car to go to the cash machine and it isn’t always convenient. Obviously like the rest of us I don’t have to go to the bank very often and that is the same for many folk so the bank is likely to close in the next two years. But cash is still king in some places and we need to get savvy about that. The missus and I went to see friends in Sweden last May, very pleasant place, and in Sweden lots of places no longer take cash and you have to have a card or an app on your phone. Makes going to the loo awkward sometimes I can tell you.

Is That a Pot Hole or an Open Cast Mine?

Adding to the problems of getting cash is the state of the roads and again there is a downward trend in this. Spending on Scottish roads has fallen by up to 70 per cent as local authority budgets are squeezed. It is revealed that £12,437 less was spent on roads per kilometre in East Dumbartonshire in 2017-18 than in 2010-11, a drop of 70 per cent. While in Glasgow, spending fell by 60 per cent from £37,437 per kilometre to £15,007, even though 1,200 potholes were discovered in the city last month. This of course leaves most of us pretty unhappy when we bust a tyre or damage a rim on one of these nasties. I have been lucky so far and haven’t lost a tyre, but almost everyone I know has had some problem or other. It is all blamed on the council budgets being cut and the higher cost of child protection and social care, but it is a great shame to see the terrific infrastructure that we have going the same way as in the USA. Not long ago I used to have to travel all over the USA, the world’s richest country, and I was always shocked to see how poor their infrastructure was. Trains ran very slowly on old wooden sleepers, roads were in a terrible state and all because no American feels taxes are ever too low. It is a strange  so let’s not go there.

Our History- Our Future

But all this tale of woe sees some brighter lights and among them is James Pirie, with both a rich history and a modern forward facing business. It saddens us to see some of the changes taking place, but it makes us all the more determined to be on your side and to make ourselves the best we can be in the area of customer service and supplying stuff to your door that you can be rightly proud of. Perhaps like me at the end of a day you take comfort with a dram and there is no better way to do it than with a Royal Scot Crystal - Flower of Scotland whisky Tasting Glass, which to help out is on at half price.

https://www.jamespirie.com/whisky-gifts/gift-boxed-flower-of-scotland-whisky-tasting-glass.html