Investigating the fortunes of the Scottish electronics industry can prove to be anything but high-tech: the press office of the Scottish Office issued a document on the subject but recoiled in the face of queries, muttering darkly about the difficulty of extracting comments from officials, those illusive creatures; of course it didn’t help that the fax machine was experiencing a Friday 13th sulk, or that Edinburgh was closing at lunchtime for bank holiday; efforts to reach electronics companies mentioned in the document proved as taxing, telephone numbers became squeaky fax machines and furthermore, the number obtained from directory enquiries for the Scottish Development Office dialed unobtainable; oh for the return of messages in bottles and pigeons.
