When I was little my mum and dad opened a Post Office Savings Account for me. I suppose financial literacy can never be started too early. The account bore the name of the local post office and the number 500. It was really easy to remember. I was disappointed when the account just became a ten digit stream. Well, about ten characterless digits. So called progress. I'm pretty sure, based on the written additions on the phone dial in the Inverness Courier reporters' room that at one time the original number was Inverness 59. That would have been in days that calls went through an operator. By the time I worked there automation at the exchange had extended the number to ten numbers, if you include the dialing code for Inverness. I think the Courier was gas account No. 1 in the town at one point. Gas was used to melt the lead for the typesetting machines.

When I worked for the Government of Saskatchewan there was often a media question session immediately after the Legislature meeting in the foyer when ministers and their opposition counterparts were quizzed about events in the debating chamber. The thing was it wasn’t just the two parties with members of the legislature who showed up for the question session. Two guys who represented a party with no seats in the assembly also turned up. Sadly, at least one of the “journalists” would ask one of the pair what they thought too and published their opinions. So, we had a government minister putting his case, or spin, on developments and two critics, one of whom had no electoral mandate having their say. This may have given a subliminal impression that two out of three people thought whatever the government was trying to do was a really really bad idea. I didn’t think it was right. But, if I recall correctly, the pair had quite a bit of money.

I had no idea that Tudor London was so multi-ethnic until I watched the TV programme Wolf Hall. There was even, apparently, an African member of the Privy Council, advising Henry VIII. This colourblind casting is admirable in many ways. But. But when sisters obviously have different fathers then it can become a distraction. What’s the story there? Has Lord Whatever not noticed his second daughter has a strikingly different skintone from himself and his wife?

Everday Canadian spelling can be pretty flexible. Sometimes it's American, sometimes it's English. One notable exception is when it comes to vehicle tires. Note the "I" instead of "Y". I put this down to the preference for US terms when discussing vehicles. Mention of a car bonnet or a boot can often result in a blank look. It's hood or trunk. Imagine my surprise when I came across a British dictionary that preferred tire to tyre. The Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary was compiled in the dying years of the 19th Century for use in the coming 20th Century. At the time there were not many motor vehicles around. But the iron band around wooden wagon wheels was known as a tire. Obviously, at some point the Y-folk triumphed in Britain.

I passed my driving test in Shetland. Lerwick to be precise. Big deal, I hear you think. There aren't a lot of places for the Emergency Stop portion of the test or reversing around the corner and I suspect many learners practised in exactly the same spot where they would be tested on the day until they could do hitting the brakes and backing up in their sleep. But one thing Lerwick did not have in the mid-1980s was a roundabout. Unfortunately there was a roundabout at the exit from the ferry terminal in Aberdeen. Many a newly qualified driver came to grief on their first trip to the Granite City. I think that's why the Shetland Islands Council used some of its oil money to build a roundabout at the north end of Lerwick, at Gremista, which wasn't really needed. But what do I know?