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Essential Edinburgh’s controversial application to extend the coffee pavilion in St Andrew Square Gardens has been withdrawn (Ref. 14/04840/FUL).
As first reported this time last year (‘Death by a thousand pees’), EE applied to upgrade:
Spotted in Vino’s – Edinburgh-based biographer Vin Arthey.
He was ordering wine for the launch at Waterstones on George Street of a new edition of his Abel: The True Story of the Spy They Traded for Gary Powers.
The event was timed to coincide with the Edinburgh release of Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, a film based on the same story and drawing heavily on Arthey’s researches.
BAD EGG WELCHES ON RASCAL OVER COAT
The following unedifying tale appeared in the Caledonian Mercury on 18 March 1745, some four months before the arrival on Eriskay of Charles Edward Stuart and the outbreak of the Jacobite Rebellion.
Spurtle loved this lino cut when we called in at the Gallery on the Corner this morning.
It's called 'Hunter', is by the very talented Alice Shaw, and forms part of a 16-artist joint Winter Print Show which previews this afternoon and will run until 23 December.
There was an excited buzz about the gallery today, as there is before any launch, but also a trace of sadness.
After five years, this particular social enterprise in the Autism Ventures Scotland stable has fallen victim to the Recession and will close at the end of the month.
PARKING CONUNDRUMS RAISED BY LOCAL MOTORIST'S FOI REQUEST
Reader Alastair Macfarlane has been dissatisfied for some time about parking problems around where he lives.
So much so that in mid-November he submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Council asking for clarification of the facts and figures.
He thinks that residents should be allowed to use the pay-and-display spaces for free if, despite holding a relevant zonal parking permit, there are no residents’ parking spaces available.
Bellevue Place has been looking out of this world since yesterday evening.
Star Wars droid C-3PO looms from the shrubbery in the politely menacing fashion favoured by locals observing their neighbours' bin-bag etiquette.
His companion – the thermocapsular dehousing assister R2–D2 – may be found glittering busily in the bushes nearby. We have no idea what he's up to.
Freezing parents and carers waiting for their little people to emerge from Broughton Primary School may soon have an alternative spot in which to chill.
A local resident – Yosef Mazon – has applied for permission to convert the Broughton Road police box opposite the top playground at the corner of St Mark’s Path into a takeaway coffee and food outlet (Ref. 15/05365/FUL).
The Sutton Gallery’s Winter Show is becoming one of my favourite traditions at this time of year.
One reason is that it’s one of the few places left in Edinburgh where Christmas isn’t forced on you. Another is that it looks back at some of its highlights over the past 12 months and also looks ahead to what's coming in the next.
There is no set theme to this exhibition, not even a winter one, although there are some close connections. Each artist blends seamlessly into the next, complementing each other as they pass.
Following their victory in the Lothians in June, last week a team of S3 and S4 pupils from Drummond Community High School took part in the Enterprising Maths in Scotland competition finals of the held at the Glasgow Science Centre.
Fifty-eight teams who had qualified from regional events across the country tackled a variety of puzzles and problems, including team questions, practical tasks and calculations, logic games and relay races.
December’s Spurtle is an almost entirely Christmas-free zone. It contains only a dozen words of vague cheeriness, being chiefly consumed with news: news red, amber, and green in beak and claw.
Brace yourself. We start with trams and the Swiss cheese that is likely to be Leith Walk, teapots west of Eighth Avenue, rumblings along Broughton Street, and an embarrassing slap on the wrist for Council Planners.