Breaking news

Many local readers will have noticed that the controversial reversal of Forth Street's one-way system which had been scheduled for 10am this morning has been 'postponed'.

Cancelled more like. Spurtle now has the explanation.

From 10am on Monday 5 March, the one-way system on Forth Street will be temporarily reversed, meaning that drivers will not be able to enter from Broughton Street.

The switch is to accommodate possible re-routing of traffic made necessary by diversions around tramworks elsewhere (see Issue 204, page 1).

Although the change is expected to last only until November, it has not been greeted with unalloyed joy by local residents and businesses.

Dylan, the errant Canonmills tom whose unexplained disappearance sparked search parties along the Water of Leith and a poster campaign across half of north Edinburgh, has returned safe and sound.

After a two-week absence, he reappeared without explanation or apology on his owner's bed this morning and began purring.

She responded, we are told, with 'three big bowls of food and lots of cuddles'.

That'll learn him.

Time is fair marching on in 2012 (See what I did there? Marching? Because it’s March? Oh, forget it) so it must be time for a another scintillating edition of 'Oot!' – your one stop shop for several things that may or may not happen in Edinburgh over the next 31 days.

These complex steel warts on the face of a much-loved friend suggest something seriously amiss with the fabric of Broughton Primary School.

Fortunately, they are just a health and safety requirement of access to the roof where January storms prised loose sections of the ridge.

The scaffolding is expected to remain in place for a few more days.

In the meantime, locals are requested to tell police if they see anyone climbing it outwith working hours.

How many Spurtle readers have gazed recently upon the eastern flank of the Balmoral Hotel and considered its channelled pilasters dividing the ground-floor shopfronts, its glazed mezzanine (with oculi to two bays to outer right), its tall pedimented, key-blocked entrance bays to centre, left and right with oculi to the mezzanine, and its first floor detailed like its second only without pediments?

Probably all of you.

City of Edinburgh Council has effectively agreed to the demolition by London Cornwall Property Partners (LCPP) of the former Gateway Theatre and associated buildings at 40–4 Elm Row, and their replacement by student accommodation (Ref. 11/02696/FUL).

Broughton Street cannot claim to have inspired it, but it did at least stimulate the creation of a new production which will show in Edinburgh tomorrow for the first time.

Mara Menzies – a Kenyan-Scottish playwright, storyteller and performer – spent long hours writing and rewriting her script for Tyi Wara in this part of town's numerous coffee havens.

'My muse was most often lifted in Artisan Roast',' recalls Mara, 'but I would go to others to find another perspective for my characters.'

Last year, with the help of the  51st Scottish Brigade, Drummond Community High School was able to ship 5,500 books out to its partner schools in Kenya, writes school Librarian Annie Scanlon.

Squeakily clean Spurtle staff have again not been summoned to give evidence at the Leveson Inquiry, leaving us ample time to continue deleting emails and finish a new pure-as-the-driven-slush edition of Broughton's only free, independent stirrer.

Issue 204 will lead with news of a campaign triumph, impending chaos, a sad departure, financial woes, and the ornithological musings of an optimist.