Breaking news

Three new 3-bedroom residential properties are proposed for vacant land 10m west of 13 Broughton Place Lane (Ref. 14/00646/FUL).

What do you make of this?

The Other Place on Broughton Road has announced that ‘The Other Challenge’ is now to be a permanent feature of the establishment.

Anyone who manages to eat their triple chilli cheese burger with a side of chilli cheese fries and onion rings within 20 minutes will have the cost of the meal and any drinks consumed during the process ‘wiped from the bill’.

Spurning convention and the relentless march of time, Spurtle was not published on the first of the month at the weekend. Instead we propose publishing later today, it being the 3rd, which in trendy circles is the new 1st.

What is it with St Mary’s RC Primary School on East London Street?

The place has a good enough reputation among those locals who attend, but to the casual passer-by its exterior signage has all the welcoming charm once reserved by the Alamo for visiting Mexicans.

Work begins bright and early on Monday morning to repair the dangerously torn surface of Powderhall Bridge leading into St Mark's Park (Issue 226, p.2).

Non-slip plywood will be removed, existing deck boards will be prepared, and a new anti-slip surface applied. The whole process will take about three weeks.

An apparently alarming fact was stretched to breaking-point over 13 column inches in the Evening News last week ('Not Top of the Stops', 19 February). It concerned the respective stopping distances of buses and trams in Edinburgh.

They're back.

Like Nazca Lines in the deserts of South Peru, crop circles in Borsetshire, or the embarrassing fungal infection you thought you'd got rid of using a proprietary brand but clearly haven't, pavement mysteries have reappeared outside Artisan Roast on Broughton Street.

Whether they continue as minimalist black and white whorls, or gradually fill with a vaguely Canadian rainbow of colours, remains to be seen. We will observe with interest.

The community bid for St Stephen’s Church has failed ... but perhaps in a good way.

Next month, Fred Berkmiller, chef-patron of L’Escargot Bleu on Broughton Street, will once again be at the heart of the Budding Chefs programme, now in its fourth year.

When an artwork appears in the newspapers, writes Rhys Fullerton, 'it's usually because it's about to sell for a large sum of money or because it's unusual and stands out. Angela Palmer’s Brain of the Artist (2013) falls into the latter catgory.