An item of "Breaking News". Will appear on the Breaking News page and the front page.
Earlier this year (Breaking news 10.2.11) we covered the application to build a three-bedroom dwelling house on Northumberland Street NE Lane (behind 17 Great King Street), and predicted a vinegar-faced reception from neighbours for the proposal. We now learn that consent has been refused following 12 letters of objection.
Even as you read this, thousands of words are being extruded in legible lumps from a wordprocessor located in Central Spurtleshire.
Together they comprise Issue 195, and describe recent news, current affairs, upcoming events and wrongheaded opinion on all things Broughton.
The Gallery on the Corner will host a pop-up shop a week tomorrow (Saturday 4 June) to raise funds for its brilliant work with people who have autism.
The young Scottish designer Catriona Garforth's spring and summer collection will be on show from noon till 6pm. Models will display the clothes, whose quality visitors are invited to touch and feel for themselves. Bubbles will be served, and we're not talking Irn-Bru.
Special discounts will be available on the day.
Broughton residents have repelled, for now, an unauthorised effort to build across the Edinburgh World Heritage Site (EWHS).
Last week, Virgin Media began erecting 1.5-metre grey junction boxes on kerbs and against railings at sites across the New Town including Drummond Place, Cornwallis Place, Fettes Row, Royal Crescent, Dundonald and Scotland Streets. Outraged residents, some of whom had lost daylight into their basement flats, learned from workmen that a further 2,000 were planned across the capital.
Karen Docwra works in the Fundraising and Communications Team at Waverley Care – a Mansfield Place-based organisation which helps people (and their partners/family) across Scotland living with the blood-borne viruses Hepatitis C and HIV. Spurtle visited to find out more.
Sports fans from across Edinburgh will gather soon to celebrate a well-kent face on the Scottish basketball scene – Danny Kaye.
Kaye will be fêted by friends and admirers at the Powderhall Arms on Broughton Road as a portrait of him by rising London-based artist James Metcalfe is unveiled to locals for the first time (see below).
The result of over 20 sittings, it depicts the 81-year-old youth in characteristic pose and clothes, with a camera, basketball and cryptic crossword at his side – all clues to the man's distinctive passions over the years.
As one who has very recently redecorated a flat and now experiences an acute reluctance to start banging nails into the walls from which to hang pictures, this correspondent can only begin to imagine how staff at the extensively remodelled Scottish National Portrait Gallery (SNPG) must feel.
Here at the Spurtle, we are used to authors being late for deadlines, but less used to late authors being on time.
However, never ones to look a gift horse in the mouth – especially on the day Richard Jeffrey resigned as Chairman of TIE – we are happy to publish this timely poem from one William Topaz McGonagall.
[Our thanks to the clairvoyant Ian Spring.]
VERSES ON THE EDINBURGH TRAMS
Armies advance and retreat, elections are won and lost, philosophies cross continents and collapse walls. In Edinburgh, however, most issues are contested on a far more modest scale.
Take Broughton Place, for example.
A local resident – for whatever principled reasons – attached a sign to the railings at the western end which read 'NO CYCLES'.
Some other principled citizen – for contrary principled reasons of their own – promptly removed the 'NO' and replaced it with an invitation to join monthly organised rides about the capital.
Leith Festival – the annual community-arts celebration of Leith’s heritage, current diversity and future – will run from 10–19 June. The online Box Office opens for bookings next week on Monday 23 May (www.leithfestival.com).
Over 100 events will explore theatre, dance and performance, comedy, music, visual art, walks / talks / open doors, literature, film, sport, youth and community.