In the 20 business days preceding 25 January, Burns Night, Macsween’s ships more than five tonnes of haggises every day.Early in January 1984 Tessa Ransford asked John Macsween to sponsor the opening of the Scottish Poetry Library, at a Burns Night dinner, by providing the haggis – which he was happy to do for a friend. As an afterthought, she told him that there would be several vegetarians present. He at first protested, as “vegetarian haggis” is a contradiction in terms, but gave in to her entreaties and developed a recipe that omitted the lamb and beef of the traditional haggis, and was not encased in the usual washed large intestine of an ox. This gave him the confidence to establish Macsween’s haggis as a brand, and he returned to London to knock, successfully, on the doors of Harrods and Fortnum’s, so that, says his daughter Jo, “Macsween’s haggis was now better known in London than in Glasgow”.In 1996 he moved the business from Bruntsfield to the Loanhead manufacturing plant, which employs some 30 people (though the gregarious Macsween always missed the customers). Invited to join other retailers in a Scottish-goods promotion at Selfridges in London, he was surprised when, at the end of the week, Selfridges’ buyer gave him a very large order for his haggis. Four months were spent haggling over the correct consistency of the “model” silt and sand. The first idea tested on the model was to remove the causeway and the existing dam That helped but only very, very slowly.

Brigitte Bardot, an animal rights activist and anti-fur protester, has said that she is considering forsaking her home country for Sweden, a land more sympathetic to her campaign.
“To the contrary of [Greta] Garbo, who left Sweden to finish her days in the US, perhaps I will leave France to finish my days in Sweden, since today I feel much closer to Swedish sensitivity than to French insensitivity,” Ms Bardot said.The film star, who runs a foundation for animal rights, wrote a letter yesterday to the Swedish prime minister, Goran Persson, calling his nation one of only a few “that takes into consideration animal well-being”.She also lambasted the French government for attacking Sweden’s proposal to introduce new European Commission rules on conditions for raising minks.”The intervention of my government makes me ashamed,” she wrote, while acknowledging that her image had always been linked to France.. For decades she was the quintessential French icon with the perfect Parisian pout, an illustrious career in Gallic cinema and a body that was used by sculptors for a bust of Marianne, the national emblem But now it seems the love affair may be over. “But I’m hoping the timing will work out that there will be a backlash against the backlash by the time we open.”Damon Lindelof, the co-creator of the series Lost, added: “The internet has created something that didn’t exist five or 10 years ago, a direct dialogue with the creators or actors of a show. For fans, they feel they have this access and they are empowered. When we do our podcasts, and we explain what we’re doing, they disagree with us and they tell us: ‘Well, it’s my show too’.”Several forums and websites are dedicated to Studio 60, which stars Matthew Perry from Friends and Bradley Whitford, who played the deputy chief-of-staff Josh Lyman in West Wing. Including the dividend, the bid values the entire issued share capital of Falconbridge at C$24.1bn.Significantly, Xstrata’s offer is no longer subject to a minimum tender obligation.

Xstrata thus invited shareholders to tender shares “without further delay”. Xstrata offered C$62.50 in cash per share, compared with its last bid of C$59.In addition, Xstrata will honour Falconbridge’s payment of a special cash dividend of C$0.75 a share. A fifth player, Teck Cominco from Vancouver, has also tabled a bid for Inco, but does not support the Falconbridge deal.In the wake of the increased Inco/Phelps Dodge bid, Xstrata increased its bid by about 7 per cent to match Inco’s offer. It has urged the target company’s shareholders to tender shares immediately. Xstrata, which already holds a 20 per cent stake in Falconbridge, is competing with Canada’s Inco to buy Falconbridge.
Inco’s bid is supported by Phelps Dodge, the American copper miner that raised its bid for a combined Inco and Falconbridge to C$41bn on Sunday, which would be the largest ever mining takeover if the bid succeeds.