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HEAD TO HEAD REVIEWED BY J.R. MACLEAN

The current Head to Head exhibition of sculpture holdings from the National Galleries of Scotland collection in the Portrait Gallery is a miracle both of presentation and representation in the limited space of the Robertson Trust Gallery.

More than that, it is a tour-de-force by its inspired curator Imogen Gibbon in introducing us to a range of riches which are not often seen, and in the great variety of works – many of which take the breath away.

Feeling the heat?

Then spare a thought for the Broughton Scouts travelling abroad today for a Kayaking Adventure in south-central France. 

Twenty-eight plucky lads, lassies and leaders have spent the last 18 months planning for nine days of camping, caving and climbing, the trip culminating in an overnight kayak expedition down the Ardèche River. 

Daytime temperatures there are predicted to reach 98.6º F (37ºC) and not dip below 89ºF (32º).

After eight years in the role, Leith Walk councillor Maggie Chapman will step down from Ward 12 duties this summer. 

She will concentrate instead on contesting the North East of Scotland seat for the Greens at next year’s Scottish Parliamentary Election. 

‘While I am taking nothing for granted and will work hard for every single vote, I also firmly believe that we can and will win MSPs in every region in Scotland,’ she announced yesterday. 

The Leith Walk by-election (Ward 12) triggered by Councillor Deidre Brock’s resignation will be held on 10 September.

Sue Bruce, Returning Officer and Chief Executive of The City of Edinburgh Council, said: ‘Deidre Brock has served as an elected member for more than eight years and I wish her well in her new role as a Member of Parliament.

‘I now look forward to involving the public in the democratic process to elect a new councillor for the Leith Walk ward.’

Deidre Brock is stepping down as councillor for Leith Walk (Ward 12). She will focus instead on her new role as MP for the Westminster parliamentary constituency of Edinburgh North and Leith.  

In a letter to City of Edinbugh Council's chief executive Sue Bruce at the weekend, Brock wrote:

        Dear Sue,

With works in the permanent collection of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and the City Art Centre, Scottish artist Joyce Gunn Cairns needs no introduction.  

It is refreshing to get a chance to see some of her works in one place, and this exhibition – a mixture of portraits and wildlife studies ­– shows off Gunn Cairns’s elegant and curious style. 

HART STREET AND HART STREET LANE  

As I meandered one recent evening, scrutinising the ebb and flow of the Georgian gloaming, it suddenly struck me that the Situationists were right after all: authentic social life has been superseded by its representation.

It seemed clear that many local households took satisfaction in, indeed derived meaning from, their proximity to the pavement. Displaying themselves and their wares to the passer-by, they take enthusiastic part in the New Town's very own Society of the Spectacle.

‘It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.’  

So wrote the US author and counterculturalist Hunter S. Thompson, and it’s a sentiment seemingly shared by several of the artists in this month’s joint exhibition Coast to Coast in the Union Gallery. 

Plans for St Mary's Music School to move into a restored, refurbished and reconfigured old Royal High School complex went on display on Thursday.

The Royal High School Preservation Trust (RHSPT) held the public exhibition in Canongate Kirk, directly below the imposing Thomas Hamilton building at the foot of Calton Hill.

These were far from being the kind of detailed proposals required for a full planning application (they'll cross that bridge if and when they come to it).