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Indie Chic at the foot of Broughton Street are offering great reductions on clothing and lingerie at the moment

Positively i-popping, in fact.

Green-fingered and/or community-minded and/or hungry-but-cheap Broughtonians are going to enjoy this Sunday.

From 11am–1pm, Greener Leith are organising a spring-clean of cycle paths near St Mark's Park and the weir below Redbraes. Toshiba Medical Visualisation Systems staff will be lending a hand (presumably imagining the worst that could happen), and the Council have promised state-of-the-art litter-pickers, gloves and bags.

It's hard to say exactly what appeals to us about the scene below, spotted today in a mystery location somewhere in the Edinburgh World Heritage Site.

It has something to do with the enlightened New Town's occasional lapses into shadow. Something to do with entropy and the doomed struggle to keep order. Something to do with a traffic cone which looked to us a bit like a Vivienne Westwood bride advancing solo up the aisle.

City of Edinburgh Council will consider ways of reducing the effect of national changes to welfare benefits during its Corporate Policy and Strategy Committee on 16 April, it announced today.

Proposals for redevelopment of the site west of Shrub Place have now entered the Planning process.

'Refraction,' one dictionary declares, 'is the deflection of light, heat, sound etc. as it passes obliquely from one medium to another'. 

Something similar happens in the human mind at the boundary of earth and ocean. Remember that sudden quickening when you first saw the sea as a child? Remember the grown-ups' shrinking authority when you swam away? Remember the curving horizon?

Lady Thatcher, prime minister from 1979–90, died this morning. Nick Eardley at the Scotsman was first to break the news in Edinburgh. 

Are you enjoying the better-late-than-never sunshine?

It is entirely due to Broughton topers making a special effort for the community, at least if the A-board outside Villeneuve Wines is to be believed.

The BBC forecasts temperatures climbing to a sweltering  8 degrees celsius today. 'With only light winds,' they say, trying not to get too carried away, 'it will feel quite pleasant.'

Spurtle enjoyed a long coffee and walkabout today with Sean Johnstone (right), former resident of these parts and a mine of information on all things Broughton, particularly from 1968–89.

Johnstone's father grew up at 66 East Claremont Street during the Second World War, when what is now the adjacent Territorials' transport depot was an ammunition store.

Police are investigating the death of a man found in the New Town this morning.

The man – believed to be in his 30s – was discovered at around 5am in a lane off the eastern end of Cumberland Street. He was ambulanced to hospital where he later died.

Cumberland Street remained closed off at lunchtime as police conducted forensic and other enquiries in the area.

Detective Inspector Neil Spowart said the death was so far being treated as unexplained.