Breaking news

The latest Spurtle is nearly ready and will be beautifying Broughton with local news, views and opinion from Tuesday onwards.

Issue 231 contains July-flavoured coverage of umpteen nearby planning developments (good, bad and ridiculous), heroic hand-overs, adventurous disappointment, friends, flits, fudge, flying and farewells. Buses, bins and all the latest on macaroni follow, not to mention galleries, a refuge and the latest wholly unreliable cupcake-related Referendum voting-intention poll results.

Financial literacy and entrepreneurship were the subjects of a recent seminar for Drummond CHS pupils in years S3–S6.  

Plumbing Pensions (UK) Ltd, which shares offices with SNIPEF at Bellevue House on Hopetoun Street, hosted the first ever RedSTART event in Scotland for Drummond pupils on 18 June.

As exclusively insinuated by the Spurtle back in April (Breaking news, 7.4.14; 7.5.14), the purchaser of St Stephen’s Church is Leslie Benzies, president of the video-game producer Rockstar North.

Philip Johnston, spokesperson and consultant for Benzies, today issued the following statement:

Parts of Warriston will be among the first areas in the city to experience new waste collection arrangements in September. Those affected will be informed by post in July.

Households will be supplied with a new 140-litre wheelie-bin for general waste, with the standard green wheelie-bin being used for mixed recycling (paper/cardboard, cans/foil/empty aerosols). Blue boxes will be used for glass, food and garden recycling. Red boxes aren’t needed anymore and can be thrown away. Or handed back, responsibly.

The Union Gallery on Broughton Street will mark five years in business next week with a mixed exhibition featuring some of its regular artists.

Drummond Community High School’s annual Celebration of Achievement last night was the last for headteacher Norma Prentice, at least for now, writes David Sterratt.

She has agreed to take up a temporary secondment at Castlebrae Community High School in Niddrie for the coming 2014–15 session.

Representatives of the developer S. Harrison Development Ltd (SHD) were on hand in McDonald Road Library yesterday afternoon and evening to explain outline proposals for the 0.55-acre site at 34b Haddington Place (Breaking news, 3.6.14). 

For the third consecutive year, Art pupils at Drummond CHS have undertaken a project with support from SNIPEF, the plumbing trade association based at Bellevue House on Hopetoun Street.

This year’s scheme, which involved eight S1 pupils, was based on the collage work of Eduardo Paolozzi (1924–2005). Paolozzi was brought up in the area, went on to become a world-renowned artist, and is credited with being the founder of Pop Art.

This distinctive-looking bike was stolen from a garage in the lane off Melgund Terrace on 17 or 18 June. Its owner wants it back, and is asking for your help in finding it.

It’s a bright red Concept/Oberon, with mudguards hand-painted in yellow, red and blue. The saddle was narrow, black and had a red flash.

When last seen, there was a heavy-duty chain and lock around the crossbar.

It is not a bike to fade into the background.

Please text sightings or information to either 07474 114 630 or 07771 528 558. Alternatively, Tel. 556 5036.

Guests at last night’s annual Drummond Place garden party were greatly entertained by the expert, toe-tapping performances of a seven-strong Klezmer band.

Among their number was retired architect, local resident and regular Spurtle contributor Peter Verity (pictured far left with drum, below).

Verity says he first learned this music, the traditional style of Yiddish-speaking Eastern European Jews, at his grandfather’s knee. Rather an unusual place to learn it since his grandfather was a Church of England vicar.