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This handsome ginger cat is called Ossian, and he's gone missing.

The two-year-old male – distinctive for his unusual curly coat – did what most of us feel like doing when builders enter the house: ran for the hills in terror.

The problem is: Ossian is normally a confirmed indoor cat  with no previous inclination to explore the outside world. He is likely to be lost, frightened and cold in the Logan Street/Eyre Crescent area.

Anyone out there ever heard of Lieutenant Colonel Francis James Scott?

We don't know where he was born (he appears to be settled much later at Mount Lodge, Portobello), but in a codicil to his will of 1820, the year before his death, he had sufficient local ties to leave £2,000 in trust for ‘the maintenance of an Episcopal [boys' and girls'] school or schools in inseparable connexion with the Episcopalian Chapel commonly called St James Chapel Broughton Place Edinburgh'. 

It's the Little Things this month at the Union Gallery features comparatively small works by contemporary Scottish artists.

There is no overarching theme, just original works that won't require a wall the size of a bus and a bank vault to match in order to enjoy them. A few favourites are reviewed below.

Khushi's Edinburgh seek planning permission to extend the restaurant and create new office space behind the premises at 10–11 Antigua Street (Ref. 12/04541/FUL). 

The project would create 247 sq. m. of additional floorspace for restaurant/café use (with a total occupancy of 225), and 77 sq. m. of additional space for financial, professional and other services.

The New Town and Broughton Community Council  (NTBCC) has given a general welcome to the notion of improving Leith Walk, but has serious doubts about some aspects of the Council's preliminary designs. (NTBCC's area of interest runs south of McDonald Rd.)

Transport Convener Patrick Hutton said road users would be pleased by resurfacing of the thoroughfare 'after all the damage inflicted during the tram [utilities-related] MUDFA works'. 

Road works at the top of Broughton Street/York Place started on Friday 11 January and are expected to remain in place for another two weeks, writes Stephen Higham.

They involve the construction of of a new drainage system in the area. 

Buses wishing to access the bus station must now enter via Little King Street and exit via York Place. Cars too have to divert via Princes Street or parallel routes further north.

While concentrating on a half-hearted January detox and the trials of returning to normality after the Christmas and New Year festivities, every year Burns Night seems to creep up on me. Before I know it, it's time to start peeling the neeps and tatties and getting the haggis on to boil.

This year however, I've managed to eke out the Burns Night celebrations with an adaptation of a classic Scottish desert, cranachan.

Over recent months we have been amused and edified by literary quotations on the A-board of Broughton Street's Villeneuve Wines.

Staff have selflessly distilled the reading of a dozen lifetimes to share concise wit and wisdom from across the ages on the subject of alcohol. Admittedly, the words they've chosen have all been unquestioningly positive about the qualities and associations of booze, but many of us these days welcome a little optimism in the face of so much unremitting negativity concerning all things pleasurable.

A man was robbed at knifepoint this morning close to the Warriston entrance of St Mark's Park.

The 42-year old was walking at around 7.30am when two men approached him – one on a red Vespa scooter and the other on foot. The latter produced a knife and both demanded he hand over his valuables.

The victim fled after offering up his mobile phone.

It's being dismantled now, but while it lasted the Big Wheel in Princes Street Gardens afforded spectacular and unusual views over the city.

We have no idea what goes on in the private, top-floor fortalice above Jenners (right), but would quite like it as a personal, city-centre pied-à-ciel of our own.