The Great New Year Pie Scandal

The Horseshoe bar is one of Glasgow's most famous bars and the owners' decision to stop selling scotch pies is not going down well with the regulars. Seasoned Brit watchers will not be surprised to hear that someone's set up a petition to have them reinstated.

Here at the Spread it's fairly quiet after the pandemonium of new year. We've spent the past four days in the bar, but have staff this afternoon. L is working on our new website (complete with Polish translation courtesy of Magda). It should be ready before the end of January.

Renovations
No action this week. We are waiting for the green light from the insurance company before proceeding with the water damage work. We're also holding off the external work until we get the VAT refund for the last quarter. For those unfamiliar with VAT it's a sales tax on any value you add to a product. If you buy something for a pound and sell it for two, you pay 17.5% of the difference to customs and excise. At the moment with the renovation work going on we are spending a good deal more than we are earning and as a result customs and excise owes us around £11,000. That's more than enough for the external works.

Nerdy
I have finally got NIS to work. This is a system where you have several computers connected together, but no matter which one you log onto you always see your own files. It's used in big offices and is probably a bit over the top for ours.