An item of "Breaking News". Will appear on the Breaking News page and the front page.
Thanks and well-dones to all who took part in our Edinburgh Safari (5) to discover 3D, artificial foxes around the city.
Some of you more or less followed the rules. Some of you more or less didn’t. Others both did and didn’t, showing a reckless disregard for the orderly glue of civilisation.
@NewTownFlaneur submitted his answers as follows:
As reported here on 3 June, when the Council commissioned Ironside Farrar’s report on future Design Principles for George Street, it was with a view to restoring the thoroughfare as the pre-eminent jewel in Edinburgh’s architectural crown.
George Street is now intended to become a flexible shopping, business and events space, attracting visitors from across Edinburgh, Scotland and the world.
Last month, we reported local concerns about the standard of paving on a section of Leith Walk outside Sainsburys (Breaking news, 29.6.16).
Discontent about the state of our footpaths is not a recent phenomenon, however.
Sections of the following letter, published in the Edinburgh Evening Courant on 26 July 1851, could almost have been written yesterday.
PRINCE’S STREET—FOOT PAVEMENT.
Mony a brattle, yirth din an wullfire, this muithy mornin, writes Peggy Farquharson, recalling meteorological excitements earlier today.
If it wisna routin, it wis flaffin, an if it wisna flauchtin then it wis routin or thinkin aboot routin.
Whit wi the dinnles an thuds an heavysome thunder-plumps, the hurls an flauchts, the skarrachs an rattlestanes, it wis mair lik the hindmaist day betimes, the plowtery crack o doom, the slabberin mou o muckle hell openin up aa the way doun Dunedin Street.
Do you have a summer wedding to attend, but can’t find exactly the right thoughtful and unique present for the happy couple?
Your problems may be over.
Nothing suggests style, breeding and a love of Nature like a stuffed head mounted on the wall, and now you can achieve the same effect without the glassy stare and oddly misshapen features of the recipients when given the real thing.
Laura Cameron’s wonderful ‘woolidermy’ is currently for sale at Concrete Wardrobe on Broughton Street.
We thank reader John MacDonald for this photograph, taken recently in the Botanics.
'It's a glorious field of predominantly yellow and occasionally blue wildflowers – quite unusual for the Botanics – situated next to the 1970s glasshouses.
'A section of ground has been planted with red poppies as a memorial to the fallen soldiers of World War I.
'However, the gardeners must have planted other wildflowers to come out at a time when the poppies are dormant.'
The last time I wrote about the etiquette at swing parks, I almost sent one reader to sleep (see comments here), so please read with caution.
Back then, I commented on the joy a parent feels when they see an empty set of swings.
We live in tumultuous times.
Broughton has responded with customary wisdom, wit, and peculiarity.
We begin with a torn sticker adhering to a lamppost in Haddington Place.
Foresight is a wonderful thing.
If you’re heading off to sunny climes this weekend – Newhaven, perhaps, Porty, or North Berwick – the following advice may be of interest.
It appeared in an advertisement in the Edinburgh Evening news on Saturday 15 July, 1916.
This was a time, clearly, when everyone’s thoughts were focused on holidays and looking good.
BATHING WITHOUT INJURY
TO THE COMPLEXION.
---
This small two-year-old local is normally in and out of the backgreens behind Cornwallis Place, and sometimes finds her way along as far as the allotments off East Scotland Street Lane.
But in a change of behaviour which is completely out of character, Harper’s been missing since yesterday for no apparent reason.
She has a very white chest, distinctive light and dark grey markings on her back, and is chipped and neutered.
She responds to her owners calling her by name, but is likely to be more timid around strangers.