Breaking news

'It's not a sex shop, it's an erotic boutique. And we're not corrupting anybody.'

So says Heather Craig, who with business partner James Anderson opened Broughton Street's newest shop – The White Rabbit – on 1 February.

We hate awkward silences as much as the next hyperlocal, but this time the elephant in the room was entirely welcome.

Benign, beautiful and almost irresistibly huggable, she features in the window of Concrete Wardrobe on Broughton Street, and was attracting frequent second glances from pedestrians there as we looked on this afternoon.

Are you fit? Are you a man or woman aged over 18 and ravishingly attractive? Are you able to keep smiling even with one leg wrapped behind your ear and a pompom stuck up your nose?

Of course you are ... Broughton has that effect on everyone.

All right, then – Do you fancy strutting your stuff at Murrayfield in front of 67,800 appreciative Welsh and Scottish rugby supporters on Saturday 9 March?

The March issue of the Spurtle is poised in the jaws of a printing machine. It will shortly be chomped, swallowed, digested and ... um ... brought forth glistening into the daylight ready for distribution across Broughton over the next few days.

Issue 216 devotes a whole page to mixed news about a troublesome void at the heart of the neighbourhood, It goes on to examine eating, drinking, collapse and death, art, dystopia, paradoxes, dullness, Bohemian rhapsodies, a mysterious black box and more bouncing optimism from local fitness guru Tracy Griffen.  

Local resident Bill Giles has responded to our article on access to the private garden in Drummond Place (Issue 215, ‘Grass to stay greener’). We reproduce his words in full below.

Those pressing for a new Pilrig Conservation Area are less than impressed by Edinburgh Evening News coverage of the subject yesterday.

The article's 'misleading' headline ('Council chiefs say no to Pilrig conservation area') has come in for particular criticism on the grounds that 'nobody has yet said "NO" to anything'. 

Edinburgh Printmakers on Union Street will hold a fundraising spring auction on 5 March, 6–9pm.

Some 141 lots will go under the hammer, comprising a range of styles and prices (some eminently affordable) by artists including the internationally renowned John Bellany, Calum Colvin, Alan Davie, Graham Fagen, Kenny Hunter, Chad McCail, Scott Myles, Graham Todd, Kirsty Whiten and Adrian Wiszniewski.

A new Friends of Pilrig Park group will work with the Council to draft an improvement plan for this popular but run-down local resource.

At last night's Leith Central Community Council meeting, officials listed some of the park's problems identified already. 

In recent weeks, a number of supermarket chains and other food suppliers/manufacturers have learned that some of their supposed processed beef products have contained varying proportions of horse DNA.

In the case of Tesco, these included Everyday Value 8 x beef burgers (397g), Tesco 4 x beef quarter pounders (454g), branded Flamehouse Chargrilled Quarter Pounders, and Everyday Value Spaghetti Bolognese.

Planning consent looks set to be granted for a 239-bed, 4-star hotel at 1–5 Baxter's Place (Ref. 12/04064/FUL; Breaking news, 28.11.12). 

Developer Chris Stewart Group is in talks with a potential occupier for the site, whom Spurtle believes to be Marriott Hotels.