Breaking news

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.'

Readers will remember the careful archaeological study, recording and dismantlement of Botanic Cottage on Haddington Place around two years ago (Breaking news 3.9.09).

It initially appeared an almost ruinous building, converted out of all recognition from its origin as the Gardener's house at the site of the early Royal Botanic Gardens.

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.

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.

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.