Breaking news

Building the new St James Quarter seems to have taken a big step closer thanks to 'major' new funding arrangements agreed by City of Edinburgh Council, the Scottish Government and developer TIAA Henderson Real Estate.

Council Leader Cllr Andrew Burns, Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and TIAA Henderson’s Martin Perry announced the ‘unprecedented’ arrangement this morning at offices in Greenside Row overlooking the St James Centre.

If there’s one sign more suggestive than any other of spring having sprung, it is surely the number of seasonally bewildered cats wandering the wrong streets and back greens of Broughton.
 
If you have a shed, cludgie or outbuilding which isn’t covered in padlocks, the chances are that there’s a cat in it right now reminiscing about wherever it isn't and blaming all its current misfortunes on the stupid sat nav.

Pedal on Parliament 3 attracted an estimated 4,000 cyclists in an impressive rally from the Meadows to Holyrood this afternoon in Edinburgh.

Union Gallery’s April exhibition will resonate long in the memory, writes Ross Maclean.

Thirteen artists were invited to paint images inspired by T.S. Eliot’s poetry. The resulting ensemble is exhilarating and haunting by turns.

Several artists responded to lines from The Waste Land and ‘The Dry Salvages’ from the Four Quartets.

This kenspeckle bird was busy in St Mark's Park today, undistractably focused on a fish supper.

Ground at the southern end of the Rodney Sreet Tunnel beneath Summer Bank has being prepared by Council staff to create a wildflower meadow. 

It will bloom over the coming months from mid-summer to autumn.

Pictured right is one of two grubbily elaborate basement doors on the east side of North St David's Street. They are unlike any we've seen in the New Town before, and had a mysterious permanently-shut look about them when we passed this morning on the bus.

A New Town resident seeks planning permission to demolish this 3-space flat-roofed garage and replace it with a two-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 3-loo mews dwelling on land behind Category A-listed 65 Northumberland Street (Northumberland Street NW Lane; Ref. 14/01453/FUL). 

Nothing of any consequence happened in Broughton today. Or, if it did, nobody bothered to tell the Spurtle about it.

Here, instead (right), is a photograph of some cherry blossom on Cumberland Street.

Members of Edinburgh's Sikh community paraded this lunchtime in a colourful (and noisy) celbration of Vaisakhi.

The parade assembled on Mill Lane, then progressed along Bonnington Road, Pilrig Street, Leith Walk, Great Junction Steeet and Cables Wynd before ending up where it had started.