Breaking news

Very early proposals for new residential building on the B&Q site at 13 Warriston Road have been displayed today and will be again tomorrow. 

The ‘Canonmills Garden’ plot is now owned and being developed by the Artisan Group, itself a shareholding partnership between the Sanlam Group and Argosy & Salt Properties Ltd. They have appointed Sheppard Robson as architects. 

When Albany Street Developments submitted a planning application for a new apartment block at 21 McDonald Place last March, locals were not impressed (Breaking news, 21.3.16; Ref. 16/01329/FUL)

Some 35 letters of objection were sent to the Council, and the proposal was withdrawn on 28 June without explanation.

Police in Edinburgh today launched an initiative in the Leith area to discourage adults from buying booze for under-18s. 

Those who get caught ‘proxy-purchasing’ alcohol for underage drinkers could face a £5,000 fine or 3 months in prison or both. There’s now a helpful digital advertising screen at Shrub Place Lane reminding everyone of the fact. 

The move is part of Operation Savana, involving local police, the Scottish Alcohol Industry Partnership (SAIP), and City of Edinburgh Council. 

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.