Category Archives: What’s the Word

Big grapple

Bright lights, big city right enough. Yup, the Big Apple sure is a pulsating, glittering metropolis unlike any other. It’s a veritable feast of 3D technicolour, surround sound, smell-o-vision and taste sensations. It even feels different. Dammit, New York is just so alive! Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ve heard it all before. Returnee tales of pancakes

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Right enough

Rock solid conviction. Absolute certainty. 100% correct. Rammed to the very brim with self-belief. We all like to be right, right? Hang on a mo, tho. Even I, the (less than proud) possessor of a somewhat forceful personality, one which has unpleasant tendencies to veer towards the zealotry end of the certainty spectrum, know that it’s simply

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Progression confession

For me, there is no one direction. But for clarification, I’m not talking daft boys bands here. As if. I’m an old punk rocker, remember. I don’t do boy bands. By this I don’t mean that I’m veering wildly from one entrepreneurial idea to another. Nope, the basic principle has stayed the same. I help people

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Wishful thinking

Once more unto the small business breach, dear friends. The sun has set on Word Up’s annual summer sojourn. And amazingly, for a Scottish staycation, there was actually some sun. For two whole days. But not in a row, dinnae be daft. Annoyingly, given the desperate need for a break from the trials of entrepreneurial

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Restless natives

    Even as a Weegie* I’ve always felt kinda continental. Somehow or other my own DNA circumvented the dominant freckly-faced, gingery genes of my Scottish, English and Irish heritage, and I’ve always harboured the fantasy that there must be un poco of Spanish pirate somewhere in our family bloodline. But as I sit here in this

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Pack mentality

  If safety, security and water cooler chat feature high on your career wishlist, then sorry old chum, but sole trading just ain’t a path you want to be wandering down. Working as a lone wolf is exactly what is says on the tin. Not the wolf part – although I’ve met a few vulpine

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Purple reign

Sexists, racists, fuddy-duddies and intransigent old farts, look away now – I’m in no mood for soft soapery. On second thoughts, naw. You lot better keep right on reading because it’s time to wake up and smell the multicultural coffee. It’s time for you lot to get with the programme or find yourself in a provincial, economic and

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Bad press

I am the enemy. Or at least I used to be. Once upon a time, I was one of the bad guys. Back in the day, I earned a crust as a member of the Fourth Estate, Oh yes, dahlings, for a great big chunk of my adult life, I worked in the media. Yep,

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Sector sectarianism

Taking sides. We all do it. And we Scots have got our side-taking skills down to a fine art. Fence-sitters we ain’t. We love a good rammy, a ding-dong, and a heated debate. We’ll argue ’til we’re blue (or indeed, green) in the fizzog, and stick to our side of the story long after the

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Brand Bowie

I blame David Bowie. For everything. For the record, it’s not just The Thin White Duke I’m pointing the finger at. Nope. Let’s not forget Joe Strummer, Bob Marley, Lux Interior, Phil Lynott and Poly Styrene to name but a few prime candidates. It’s all their fault. All their fault that I am the way

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