Read All About It...

Thanks to our top chum at the Scotsman, Gaby Soutar, we have a selection of cookery books for sale in aid of our Micro-Tyco drive. Which is just as well because I suspect those kids are beavering away, being cute and making money washing cars, cleaning chimneys and suchlike.

Anyway, I have on offer:

Pasta By Theo Randall - £10
The Giraffe Family Cookbook - from the Giraffe restaurant - £10
Grogan's Companion to Drink - by Boozehound Peter Grogan - £15
Marco Made Easy - Marco Pierre White - £10
Sunday Roast - Clarissa Dickson Wright - £10
Plenty - Yotam Ottolenghi - £10 - This is a foodie's must have, normally £25 but there's slight damage to the cover so we're making it cheap.

Bids, offers etc - as usual - to ross.boyce@search.co.uk

The final week...

We're in pretty much the last week of the Micro-Tyco challenge and we're hoping to finish with a bang!

We've extended the closing date for bids on the whisky and the custom cake 'till Friday the 26th and to get you excited, here's what Whyte & MacKay's Master Blender, Richard Paterson, has to say about the whisky:

Whyte & MacKay 30 Years Old Blended Scotch Whisky
It takes 30 long years to create this masterpiece but only seconds to recognise its outstanding quality.
COLOUR: Bright, golden mahogany.
NOSE: Deep and mellow. The sherry wood exposes itself immediately. Hearty and grand, the weight of the Speyside malts lingers in graceful harmony.
TASTE: A classic refined flavour brought about by its many years in wood. A blend of this age must be drunk with respect - slow, not hurried. Each flavour must be given time to reveal its many fine qualities - rich and mellow, elegant and distinguished. All these excellent attributes are captured on the tongue leaving the palate rewarded and satisfied.

As we mentioned previously, the recommended retail price is £150 but it's so rare that Harrods and other retailers charge more - when they can source it.

All offers on this stunning bottle of Whisky or the Custom Cake baked by the Great British Bake Off's Lea Harris to: ross.boyce@search.co.uk

Extended closing dates for Cake and Whisky Auction

Wow, there's a lot of interest in both whisky and cake (and why not, most of us like one or the other - and often both).

We've decided to extend the closing date of both auctions to the 26th November - though if someone offers us something amazing beforehand we'll probably snap their hand off, we're doing this for charity you know.

Offers (in cash or trade) for both can be sent to: ross.boyce@search.co.uk

We're still here...

It's been a busy few days for the Search Micro-Tyco team (we do have real jobs as well you know), so we've been a bit quiet on the blog-front but I'm happy to report we have a few other initiatives to announce in the next few days.

Check back here soon...

Time for cake

In a great turn up for the (cookery) books, the amazing Lea Harris, baker extraordinaire and Scotland’s only representative on  BBC2’s Great British Bake Off has offered to support Search’s Micro-Tyco effort.

Lea has pledged an “IOU” birthday cake to the highest bidder and as her specialities include an awesome chocolate truffle cake (along with pretty much anything else you can think of) then for cake lovers or anyone who wants to impress a cake lover, this is an opportunity not to be missed.

Bids and offers to ross.boyce@search.co.uk

The boring stuff – the closing date 19^th November,  we can deliver the cake in Edinburgh or Glasgow or it can be collected from Search’s offices in Edinburgh or Glasgow.

We're getting serious...

If the nippers are raising £50 a day, we'd better raise our game (or possibly employ them now while we can get them for 2 Freddo bars a day with an index-linked 10p mix-up to reward performance).

We now have our bottle of Whyte & MacKay 30yr old, voted the best blended whisky in the world in several competitions, up for sale or swap.

This has an RRP of £150, though it's so rare that Harrods and other online vendors are selling it for between £160 and £175 a bottle - when they can get it.

Please contact ross.boyce@search.co.uk with whatever offers (cash or swap) you think are appropriate; and please remember, it's for charity.

Some bad news...

Ah, gay Paris - a lovely place for a long weekend for my wife's birthday; imagine how relaxed and refreshed I felt coming into work this morning (and it's a 4 day week as well).

The effect lasted until about 9:16am when I opened an email from Mick Jackson telling me that one of the primary schools turned their £1 into £55 in the first day!

This is getting serious....