Breaking news

For many years, this former Gentlemen’s Hairdresser on Rodney Street has been falling to pieces in front of our eyes. 

The paintwork is peeling from the front. Nobody knows what’s going on inside. The shop just sits there like a small-business memento mori, winking at people by the bus stop and muttering to itself. 

Now, at last, there are signs of an encouraging development.

Reader Fiona Illand contacted us yesterday with news that a self-seeded lettuce is flourishing in the doorway of No. 38.

Who doesn’t like harmonica music? 

Especially when it’s played by a spherical rat, walking on two legs, to a collection of antlike creatures gathered about his feet. 

Possibly, the Nit Not doesn’t, to judge by the expression of vexed concentration on the face of the strange character below. 

The Drummond Tennis Club’s 2016 Championships last month will largely be remembered for the taming of the Master! 

Hughie Masters – back after a short break – took on Calum Friar in the Singles Final. With the crowd expecting a Masters champion, Friar had other ideas. Calum produced his finest display  on the clay to record a 6–3 6–2 win and his third title in four years. 

The October Spurtle is written, printed, folded, counted, sorted into bundles and now ready for distribution across a news-ravenous Broughton and beyond. 

The latest issue brings you information nourishment flavoured with three planning applications which haven’t even been submitted yet,  and five that have.

We have tasty morsels on horns and mooning, a TV exclusive, and word on not particularly peaceful things to do with an olive branch that land you in court.

CITY LAUNCHES MAJOR CONSULTATION 

Anyone who lives, works or studies in Edinburgh is invited to take part in a major Council-organised consultation between now and December.

The aim of the scheme (launched on Tuesday) is to create a ‘2050 Edinburgh City Vision’, coordinating views from across the city to produce a coherent strategy for planning and investment over the next 30 years.

The first draft is scheduled for publication in summer 2017.

Colours Gallery’s latest exhibition of fine paintings was assembled by Mr Glenn Ross in the virtual afterglow of the great fireworks display which concluded this year’s Edinburgh Festival. 

It too is a scintillating celebration and, as befits this gem among the capital’s commercial art galleries, it comprises an array of chiefly 19th and 20th-century Scottish paintings of some distinction, many of which would grace the national collections.

... AND THEY’RE THE MAJORITY 

Council officials have expressed shock after their crack Waste Compliance team discovered what everyone else in Edinburgh had been aware of for years. 

A lot of businesses across the capital are rubbish at rubbish. 

A burst on a trunk water main is responsible for the low water pressure and unsastisfactory ablutions across many parts of Edinburgh this morning, including Broughton. 

A Scottish Water spokesman explains: ‘This burst is linked to a valve on our network which manages water pressure throughout the city.’

The city centre, Old Town, Canongate, Liberton, Prestonfield, Little France and The Inch are other parts of the capital which have been affected.

City of Edinburgh Council aims to create at least 16,000 affordable and low-cost homes by investing £2 billion over ten years.

This is the most eye-catching target in a nine-point strategy being consulted upon by CEC’s Health, Social Care and Housing Committee at the moment.

It comes as work begins on the major residential development at Shrubhill , where some 236 affordable homes will be built, thanks in part to CEC investment using loans guaranteed by the Scottish Government’s National Housing Trust.

Duddingston House Properties and the Urbanist Group have come forward with revised proposals for the old Royal High School and a proposal of application notice (PAN). A full application will follow in 12 weeks at the earliest. 

First, however, the plans – which many expect to comprise a drastically scaled-down version of the earlier luxury hotel scheme – will be the subject of a pre-application consultation (PAC) on a date to be agreed between 1st and 3rd November from 3pm-7pm at the old Royal High School itself.