Drinking days

STUDENTS today, eh?

The Bottom Line recalls many a happy visit to student union bars in our undergraduate heyday, when the choice of drink amounted to little more than lifeless lager and skull-splitting cider. Now students have certain expectations (gasp!) of their union watering hole.

That was underlined this week by Northern Services, the buying group for the Dundee, St Andrews and Glasgow universities, whose new deal with Molson Coors will see it stock a whole host of beers and ciders from around the world.

“The days of unions relying on a price fighting lager are over,” declared Anne Marie Bennett, executive director of Northern Services.

It’s all take, take, take these days, isn’t it?

Stirring it up

THE letters page of Wetherspoon news is a regular source of joy to The Bottom Line.

And the star turn in the summer edition was an amusing enquiry from a young reader named Thomas Lewis, following his visit to The Panniers in Barnstaple. Thomas wrote: “I wanted a teaspoon to stir my tea, but my daddy told me that Wetherspoon does not have any teaspoons! Why is your pub called Wetherspoon if you have no spoons!”

Chairman Tim Martin, pictured, gave a suitably irreverent response. “A difficult question, Thomas,” he replied. “As I walked past a bus stop near one of our pubs, a while back, someone of your age said to me, quite seriously: “Excuse me, are you Frankenstein?”

Creative club

IN this challenging era for private golf clubs, every penny counts. But where there are creative minds there are also solutions.

More than £100,000 has now been saved made by the 160 clubs of the Scottish Golf Buying Group, set up to help clubs manage their finances more efficiently.

The group is certainly showing more creativity than typically displayed by The Bottom Line when faced with a tricky bunker shot. Fore!