News about Walter Scott

The latest accounts for the company showed the loss came from a £1.1m profit the previous year, despite a jump in sales from £48.1m to £53.5m. Walter Scott, chairman of Wilkin & Sons, which owns Tiptree Marmalade, said 'virtually all' of the company's troubles were due to rising energy costs. The company was started in 1885 but traces its roots back to 1757 when the founding family began farming in Tiptree, Essex. It now makes a range of condiments including tomato sauce and mayonnaise, as well as fruit preserves like marmalade. The late Queen visited Tiptree's factory in 2010 to celebrate the company's 125 years of jam-making at the site (pictured).

Elephants react to their names just like humans, new research shows. The team recorded calls from elephants in Kenya and found they responded to calls intended for them, showing they're capable of abstract thinking. Researchers used machine learning technology to identify sounds directed from one elephant to the other.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: The first documented representation of a handshake appears in a relief of Assyrian King Shalmaneser III's Throne Dais, which dates to about 846-845 BC. It depicts him shaking hands with King Marduk-shumi I of Babylon. Shalmaneser's support for Marduk-shumi, his unpopular brother, Marduk-bel-usati, and the ascension of Marduk-shumi to the throne are captured on the scene.

In a ceremony in the village of Kirk Yetholm in the Scottish borders, Britain's other King Charles (left), who was then 70, was crowned in kingship of Scotland's gypsies at the end of May. Following Queen Esther's death, he returned to his father, Queen Esther, 15 years ago, to re-stablish the gypsy monarchy after it fell away following her death. It was in Yetholm, near thence separate kingdom of England, that gypsies had lived for centuries in relative security, governed by a absolutist monarchy. Charles II, Scotland's king of Scotland's gypsies by Yetholm's 'Archbishop,' who was also the village blacksmith, was proclaimed king of Scotland's gypsies by wearing a tin crown. A dead hare was tied around the neck of the king, who lived in Yetholm's gypsy 'Palace' (Charles and his wife were shown inset outside it). This modest building still stands today and is now a private residence and tourist house.