Breaking news

Cumberland Street residents had the fleeting taste of a new sensation this month, writes Fred Street of the New Town Clean Streets Campaign. 

A burst water main on 14 December saw the west end of the street closed off for a week, and communal bins not serviced. Residents availed themselves of this opportunity to find out what it’s like to be a Bin Tourist (rather than a Bin Destination) using the newly arrived St Vincent Street and Circus Place bins instead. 

Police have issued the following press release appealing for witnesses after a 19-year-old man was assaulted and robbed of his pedal cycle and bag.

The incident took place around 2am this morning (Sunday) on St Vincent Place at Fettes Row. The victim had been followed from Howe Street by six males who were on four mopeds.

When he fell from his bike he was assaulted and his bike and bag were taken from him.

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.