Breaking news

Is anybody else bothered by the lamp-post wraps springing up around Broughton over the last year? 

We’ve noticed their intermittent appearance on both sides of Broughton Street, York Place, Cumberland Street, Dundas Street and Leith Walk. 

They began by advertising the Council’s green recycling schemes, and encouraging people to consider becoming foster parents. On St Stephen’s Street, oddly, there is one urging members of the public to visit Stockbridge.

REVIEWED BY RHYS FULLERTON 

The Sutton Gallery’s Winter Show features a wide variety of styles by over a dozen artists. Despite its name, the exhibition includes some very colourful and eye-catching works that would brighten up the dreariest of days.

Here is a selection of some of my favourites.

‘Flora I’ and ‘Flora II’ (right) by Julia Krone Oliver are vivid treats. Full of colour and vigour, these still-lives are the perfect antidote to the winter blues. 

The following exchange has taken place every Christmas for as long as I can remember. 

PARENTAL: How many Brussels sprouts do you want for your Christmas dinner? 

LHTD: Well, I’d prefer none. 

PARENTAL: But you love sprouts. 

LHTD: No, I don’t. 

PARENTAL: You eat them every Christmas, though.

LHTD: That doesn’t mean I like them. I just eat them because they’re on my plate. Do you like them?

PARENTAL: No, but your sister does.

This sorry-looking specimen on McDonald Road has a story to tell. But what is it? 

With a week still to go before Christmas, it speaks perhaps of a Festive enthusiast who peaked too early. Jaded and overjingled, has she or he now retired under the duvet to wait for the spring? 

Or maybe its former owner is an ardent soul who consumes seasonal celebrations like a flame through brandy. Should we instead look for this individual – shaking and clammy – by the shelves of some local supermarket, feverishly comparing Valentine’s Day cards or chocolate Easter eggs? 

For no very good reason, Spurtle is running a spot-the-location quiz. 

Each Wednesday between now and the end of the year, we'll publish five square photographs featuring Broughton viewed from misleading angles or from straightforward angles but unhelpfully cropped afterwards. We use the term 'Broughton' in the elastic sense of flexible Spurtleshire. 

The fabulous creatures on this page are the work of Sally Bruce Richards, and appear in her first solo exhibition at Northumberland Street’s Gallery on the Corner. 

Richards is based on the Isle of Mull, but whilst the native fauna there may have inspired the hares and hedgehogs on display, the peacocks and hummingbirds here certainly originate further afield. 

Can any reader identify the source of the words in the window of Concrete Wardrobe on Broughton Street? 

What looks like a quotation accompanies Charlotte Duffy’s latest Christmas cardboard creation – a tree and somewhat windswept man carrying a ladder – and reads: ‘He didn’t understand why we bring trees inside – so he left it where it was.’ 

A quick Google search throws up no answers, although it vaguely reminds Spurtle of something out of Guy de Maupassant.

Reader Liz Ballantyne has spotted this yarn-bombing commentary attached to the site fence at Shrub Place. 

The statement – MORE SOCIAL HOUSING FEWER BLOODY STUDENTS – refers to the new development currently replacing Shrubhill House (Ref. 13/00241/FUL). 

Ziggurat are creating five commercial units here and accommodation for 260 students. 

And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. 

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. 

How successful the angel and subsequent multitude were in setting the shepherds’ minds at rest is not clear from Luke, Chapter 9.