An item of "Breaking News". Will appear on the Breaking News page and the front page.
Newbie professor and Broughton resident Hazel Hall officially takes up her chair at Edinburgh Napier University with her inaugural lecture ‘What’s so Social about Informatics?’ on 15 March, writes Ella Taylor-Smith.
People who meet Hazel through her social informatics work are surprised she is a small ginger lady; people who meet her at parties are surprised she is a professor. Many are wondering what social informatics is.
What is it about the cats of Canonmills? No sooner does one show up (Breaking news, 20.2.12) than another goes missing.
The absent friend this time is called Dylan, and he's been missing since Saturday 18 February. He is a friendly, 18-month-old tom, semi-long haired, with a very bushy, stripey tail.
There have been several sightings, most recently today in the Henderson Row/Perth Street area.
If you spot him, please call Jacq on: Mob. 0771 73635222.
Whisky Kiss – the Broughton-based ceilidh band with knobs on – are midway through a relentless, euphoric tour of Shanghai, New York, Kuala Lumpur and, of course, the Voodoo Rooms in West Register Street.
The Natural Beekeeping Trust (NBT) will host the Scottish premiere of Queen of the Sun, a documentary film celebrating bees, their beauty, their role in pollination and honey production, and addressing what can be done to reverse their (human) life-threatening disappearance worldwide.
In 1923, Rudolf Steiner – the scientist, philosopher and social innovator – predicted that in 80 to 100 years honeybees would collapse. His prediction has come true with Colony Collapse Disorder whereby bees are failing in massive numbers with no obvious explanation.
Rarely has an exclamation mark been so to the point.
'This chalk-stencilled sign appears beside two quasi-dog exercise areas off Arboretum Avenue, and reads Don't make our city EdinbURGH!' observes reader John MacDonald.
‘It makes a change from the usual official public warning messages, and will wear/wash away, unlike some Council notices which remain around for years after they have served their purpose.
'You will note from the photograph that a passing dog could not resist tagging the artwork.’
Despite a strong presence in Leith of environmentally focused organisations, residents here have been the slowest in Edinburgh to take up home insulation grants.
The Edinburgh Energy Coop is now encouraging locals to take up deals offering discounted or even free insulation. (For their purposes, Leith includes large swathes of Broughton.)
Drummond students have just returned from a ski and snowboarding trip to Austria, writes staff member Gillian Hemmings. They rated the holiday above 8 out of 10 with the only drawback being that it wasn't long enough.
Every morning we travelled to the Tirol mountain resort of Lizum, which was 2,500m above sea level, through outstanding scenery. The snow was heavy on the trees and the road wound upwards through many pretty villages.
Whilst all in favour of urban improvement, clean and cheerful living spaces, we nevertheless enjoy many of Edinburgh's obscure and colourfully tatty corners – such as this pend at the north-east end of Broughton Street Lane.
Has any reader researched what sort of businesses used to operate behind the bricked up doors just visible below the flyposters?
We also like the spectral and nicely rounded couple, stencilled by unknown hands, at the bottom-left hand corner and detailed below.
Meg – the deaf, local cat with a purr like a motorbike – has been found safe and noisy and is now back in her Brandon Terrace home.
It turns out that she had been depending on the kindness of strangers in Learmonth Terrace before transferring to the Cats Protection League in Leith. A worker there recognised Meg from her photograph, posted on lampposts the length and breadth of north-central Edinburgh.
Despite losing 10 percent of her bodyweight, and being a bit wobbly due to lack of medication, 'her Harley-Davidson purr still works'.
Can there be such a thing as too much hospitality?
That is the question posed by a Mansfield Place Spurtle reader, who wishes to remain anonymous.
Having grappled for some time with the ambiguities of an A-board outside the Mezz Bar on London Street, she has finally decided to draw it to to our attention. She suggests that the sign refers to nuts, but is open to misinterpretation.
We understand her point.