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SHORT CUT, BAD IDEA, PAINFUL CONSEQUENCE

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Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Service report using cutting equipment to free a 14-year-old boy this morning.

His leg had been impaled behind the knee on railings outside Drummond Community High School after a failed attempt to clamber over.

Fire fighters arrived in Bellevue Place at 8.30am, and took an hour to cut through the metal. The boy was taken to hospital with part of the railing still stuck in his leg.

PLANNING UPDATE – 16.5.11

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The Shezan Tandoori Restaurant seeks permission to alter its shopfront on the corner site at 24–5 Union Place (Ref. 11/01412/FUL). Plans include timber fretwork at the door, new aluminium-framed windows and a black fascia.

Exhaustive researches reveal that Shezan is originally an Arabic girl's forename meaning beautiful.

BROUGHTON STREET – FIRST POST-TESCO CLOSURE

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R.S. McColl at the top of Broughton Street will cease trading on 29 May.

Staff – who hope to be relocated within the company network – cite the opening of Tesco at Picardy Place as the main reason for the shop's closure. They say their branch suffered a 50 per cent loss of trade from the day the Express supermarket opened on 20 January (Breaking news 21.1.11).

LOCALS WARNED ON DODGY TWENTIES

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All that glisters is not gold. Neither, it seems, is all that crumples necessarily Clydesdale.

Lothian and Borders Police yesterday warned businesses and individuals across the capital to beware of counterfeit Clydesdale Bank £20 notes.

A batch first came to light last weekend on Lanark Road West, but it is perfectly possible that others are now circulating elsewhere in the city.

'These notes are relatively good fakes,' read a police statement, 'but when handled there is a marked difference compared to genuine notes.'

GUFFS AND PONGS INCLUDE THE SPURTLE

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An extraordinary, 4-page gallimaufry – we believe by one Ian Lutton – has come into our hands.

The Flooers o' Leith Diary 2011, spanning 22 March–27 April, contains much humorous and pungent verse, political comment, satire, historical notes, and sundry other 'guffs and pongs' in Scots. It is clearly not penned by a shrinking violet.

One entry was partly inspired by the recent Spurtle hustings. We reproduce it in full, with the proviso that the poet's memories of the event are substantially different and a good deal livelier than our own.

SPRING APPEARANCE FOR WINTER GUEST

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Spurtle is delighted to announce the opening of the 2011 Late Presented Christmas Tree Competition.

This splendid example was snapped for us on 27 April by Max Cherwell, who claims that the not-so-evergreen remained in situ on East Scotland Street Lane until shortly before work started on sprucing up the pavement opposite.

Last year's winning entry was photographed in July on West Anandale Street.

Can you beat Mr Cherwell? Do you know of pines in Pilrig or firs on Forth Street? Send us photographic evidence and international fame awaits you.

 

STILLED LIVES WITHIN PERPETUAL MOTION

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Janet Melrose – whose exhibition 'Still Life' shows in the Union Gallery this month – was trained at Edinburgh College of Art, and now lives in Perthshire on the banks of the Earn. In picturing her surroundings there, she explores the delicate threads between human experience and Nature; the present and remembered past; imagination, so-called reality and possible alternatives.

If any of that sounds either airy or grandiose, don't be put off. Her works are studiedly simple and attractive.

FIERCE ABOUT DANCE

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Logie Green resident Kayleigh Cameron is a professional dancer, dance instructor and part of the management team for the newly formed 'Fierce Pro Dance Squad'.

Combining hip hop, jazz, cheerleading and gymnastics styles, they're hoping to take the east of Scotland by storm at sporting, promotional and charity events, and are now looking for fresh talent.