Local business

Ill-advised abbreviation in Tesco Broughton Road.

Making moments into memories. For sale in a shop called, appropriately enough, Go Outdoors.

If you’re passing Canonmills Newsagents this sunny Wednesday, pop in and congratulate Anwar and Ruby. Today, they’re celebrating 21 years in charge of the popular local shop at 3 Howard Street.

The pair first learned the business in partnership with Ruby’s sister Zahida and husband Mohammad (who later ran the M.A. Store on East Claremont Street) in Musselburgh.

Next, in 1985 they took over a newsagent in Colinton Mains, before switching to Canonmills in 2001.

Congratulations to Paige Conner and staff, who have been voted the Edinburgh’s top hair salon in this year’s Scotland’s Business Awards.

An unknown client nominated the Broughton Street team over the summer, with others offering their own votes and reviews later.

A mystery shopper also visited the salon to verify the quality of the service, and to help whittle down 500 nominations to an elite 40.

WET WEATHER AND DRY WIT: Redbraes and Brandon Terrace this afternoon.

The autumn mid-term break has come early this year on Broughton Road.

Parents and carers at the primary school opposite will unite in wishing Yossi a full and speedy recovery.

Preferably, before the really cold weather sets in.

A press release arrived in our inbox yesterday asking us to ‘spread the joyous news’ that today (Friday) is National Fish and Chip Day.

This not-for-profit celebration raises awareness of the country’s ‘favourite dish’ and raises money for the charitable Fishermen’s Mission.

Last night, the London Street Grocery closed its doors for the last time.

The shop – a staple of life in the barony for the last 53 years – is now shuttered and empty.

Business has dried up in the months since Covid struck, with many people staying at home and ordering deliveries to their doors. The prolonged suspension of Broughton’s restaurant trade (which the firm supplied with excellent fruit and veg) and the absence of Drummond pupils cannot have helped either.

George Street was quiet yesterday afternoon. Eerily quiet, even for a Sunday.

There was only the occasional car. Otherwise the city-centre soundscape consisted mostly of crows rattling from rooftops, the occasional chimes of St Andrew’s and St George’s, and other people’s conversations clearly audible across four empty traffic lanes and a central reservation.

You may be experiencing a chronological meltdown.

Your dreary minutes may seem to last for hours. Dull hours for days. Each week may be indistinguishable from any other, each in its own repeat eternity.

How shall we navigate such fog? No normal chronometer will serve, not one designed to measure intervals between events. We need something new, an anti-clock, something particularly fit for nothingness and accurate to within a fraction of an absence.

Cometh the hour, cometh the shop.