An item of "Breaking News". Will appear on the Breaking News page and the front page.
One of this Spurtle correspondent’s favourite places outwith Broughton is the Edinburgh Central Library on George IV Bridge.
And one of the things he likes most about the place is that it’s not on George IV Bridge at all but on the Cowgate, four storeys and many miles below.
On a visit there earlier this week he had occasion to visit the bowels of the building in response to a call of nature.
EFFICIENT INSTITUTION EXCELS
Broughton’s back garden has received a ringing endorsement from top-level experts appointed by the Scottish Government to review its operations.
A six-strong international Visiting Group comprising academics, scientists, educationists and a museologist inspected the Garden’s operations – past, present and future – in September 2015.
FASHION, FRIPPERIES, AND YOUNG LADIES' CHANGING EDUCATION
In the Statistical Account of Scotland’s section on Edinburgh, there appear many gleanings from letters addressed to the original editor, Sir John Sinclair, in 1793.
Parts of these are of great interest to economists and historians, others to the idly curious like Spurtle.
The following extracts are reproduced unedited and in full:
In 1763 — There was no such profession known as a Haberdasher.
I arrived home yesterday evening to find a box of roses on the doorstep. Not the chocolate kind, the flower kind. Apparently they come in boxes as well as bunches and they are delivered by couriers who leave them under doormats.
My first thought was that Mrs Left-Handed Tea Drinker had a secret admirer. Like any sane man, I quickly devised a strategy to take out an advert in the Spurtle for a hitman. Thankfully, it didn’t come to that as my second thought was to check the address label.
There are exciting times ahead as we prepare for our first ever Diversity Evening celebrations on 10 March writes Drummond CHS headteacher Sue Cook.
Our International Marketplace and workshops will run from 5.00– 7.30pm and will feature foods and goods from around the world. Plan on selecting your tea from Indian, Chinese and Fair-Trade foods which will be on sale, and purchase gifts from the many other marketplace stalls selling jewellery, art, etc.
Today was a day for unexpected optimistic glimpses.
Some were a way off, like this one of Fife … kingdom of perpetual sunshine.
From Calton Hill, there were also suggestions of new growth closer to home.
How wonderful to think of a 96m-high hotel joining these vertical clusters at Ocean Terminal.
The hunt is still on for Alfie – the young cat who went missing from Bellevue Place back in September.
Anyone around Broughton with a passing interest in lampposts will by now have seen one of the dozens of notices put up by Alfie’s concerned owner all over the neighbourhood.
Her poster campaign has resulted in several responses, with possible sightings as far afield as McDonald Road in the weeks and months since his disappearance. But still no Alfie.
Those who want to protect the old, low-rise building at 1–6 Canonmills Bridge from demolition and redevelopment have launched a new phase of their campaign.
Following the Scottish Government reporter’s decision to support Glovart Investments Ltd's appeal last month (see Breaking news, 29.1,16; 1.2.16), they are now urging supporters to e-mail elected representatives in a storm of protest.
Councillors on the Development Management Sub-Committee this morning unanimously voted to refuse planning permission for eight semi-detached dwellings in four blocks on ‘backland’ south of Broughton Road (Ref. 15/02335/FUL).
As reported here last week, an official report had earlier recommended refusal on grounds including scale, access, spatial character, housing density, loss of privacy, and residential amenity now and in the future.
Dear old gent passing by, / Something nice takes his eye. / Everything's clear, attack the rear. / Get in and pick a pocket or two.
So advised Fagin in the 1963 musical Oliver! Closer to home and 196 years earlier (or 71 years before the events of Charles Dickens's 1838 Oliver Twist), three enterprising locals were getting their come-uppances for similar acts of (by today's standards) petty crime.
The following account comes from the Caledonian Mercury of 19 January 1767: