Breaking news

An exhibition of recent work by artist, café proprietrix and female-moustache enthusiast Ingrid Nilsson will open next week at Bon Papillon on Howe Street.

'Does my bum look big in this?'

It's a question many have been asked at one time or another, and one for which there is no satisfactory response.

'No' is generally disbelieved. 'Yes' is always the wrong answer. 'No bigger than usual' requires booking into a B&B for a few days. It's altogether better to feign deafness.

In what sounds like a major project , the Royal Botanic Garden wants to redevelop its existing back-of-house glass houses and buildings to create improved research, education and support facilities (Ref. 12/03736/PAN). It also seeks to refurbish the existing listed public glasshouses.

Spurtle has learned that only two of the six human figures comprising Antony Gormley's '6 Times' remain in place, and that the work's future is now in serious doubt.

The £400,000 project, stretching from Belford Road to the Port of Leith, was commissioned by the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS) and launched to public and critical acclaim in June 2010 (Breaking news, 22.6.10).

Pictured is a detail of the exquisite Tudric pewter and enamel mantel clock which goes on sale at Lyon & Turnbull next week as part of the Decorative Arts Auction.

Dating from around 1900, the piece was created by Archibald Knox for Liberty & Co. in London. Its dial comprises blue and green mottled enamel, and behind the scenes is a Lenzkirch movement.

It is estimated to fetch between £3,000 and £5,000.

Felix Kimathi (pictured far-right) is a former pupil at Muthambi Boys School  in Kenya, and has maintained close links with the institution's Scottish partner Drummond Community High School. He has recently started college, and here tells us a little of what life is like for a Journalism student there at the foot of the jobs ladder.

In Kenya, college is expensive. Unlike public universities, colleges get little support from the government, so students pay a lot of money. In my case, I pay SH 50,000 (£385) for tuition per 3-month term.

Today marks the start of National Schools Film Week, and children from two local primaries are taking part.

Billed as 'the world's largest film festival for schools', the Film Education initiative aims to help classroom teaching by providing a memorable experience for pupils (the movie), and backing it up with an online suite of resources linked to the film and more generic subjects.

Some 210 children from Broughton Primary School will watch Brave at the Greenside Vue, and another 175 will join 32 from St Mary's Primary School to watch Dr Seuss's The Lorax.

Issue 212, published today, carries for the third month in a row a front-page story about disruption on and around the Shrub Place gap-site.

By coincidence, an interim report by a Planning Enforcement officer was circulated to local councillors yesterday afternoon and reached Spurtle shortly afterwards.

As you read this, Issue 212 of the Spurtle is thundering off the presses and being folded and stacked in huge piles at a high-security, top-secret printing plant somewhere in EH7.

Within hours, a sophisticated distribution system will swing into action. Bullet mail-trains, unmarked HGVs, taut-muscled bicycle couriers, former Olympians seeking paper-round experience, and buckets of imagination will all be employed to deliver November's edition across Broughton and slightly beyond.

As reported in Issue 210, the new owners of Gayfield House at 18 East London Street seek to upgrade the historic Category A-listed Broughton landmark they have adopted as a family home (Ref. 12/03731/LBC).